14/03/2008 00:00:00
Czech Parliament Debates Amendment to the Drugs Law
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Although drug abuse is a criminal offense in the Czech Republic, the
existing legislation does not distinguish between hard and soft drugs,
merely drawing a line between what it calls “a small amount of drugsâ€
and “anything over that amountâ€. But what exactly is “a small amount†of
drugs? The law fails to specify that and it has been up to the police to
decide. Now the government has proposed an amendment to the penal code
which would let offenders know when they are on dangerous ground. DL has
the story:
The phrase “bigger than small†which was introduced into the Czech penal
code over a decade ago has been the butt of jokes for years. It even
appeared in the lyrics of a popular song. However for the police it was
no laughing matter and failing to get an answer as to how big “a small
amount of drugs†actually was they established their own norms
pertaining to various drugs. So for instance a small amount of drugs was
anything under twenty marihuana joints, 25 hallucinogenic mushrooms, 10
ecstasy pills or ten doses of heroin. Anything under that amount is
punishable by a fine; anything over it could put the offender in prison.
The proposed amendment to the penal code which, the lower house started
debating this Friday, largely corresponds with the norms the police are
already using. But the amendment goes further. The head of the National
Drugs Monitoring Centre Viktor MravÄÃk says he is particularly happy
about the fact that, if it is approved, the authorities will finally
start making a distinction between hard and soft drugs.
“The present legislation does not make this distinction. The law now
being discussed in Parliament should introduce a distinction between
hard and soft drugs and I think that this is a step in the right
direction. There can be no doubt at all that there is a difference
between say cannabis and other drugs. Cannabis does not pose such health
and social risks as other problematic drugs like heroin or
methamphetamine which in the Czech Republic is known as pervitin.â€
A recent survey among Czech teenagers indicated that a third of them
occasionally smoke marihuana – some as many as four joints a day – and
that many of them start before age thirteen. This has shocked parents
and elicited calls for a complete ban on all drugs. Viktor MravÄÃk says
this wouldn’t do any good at all and argues that there is no need to go
further than the proposed amendment.
“I think that this is the legal framework you would find in most
European countries – that possession of drugs for one’s own use is not
punished harshly. There are no benefits, no advantages to be gained from
punishing drug users. It actually does more harm than to de-criminalize
it to some extent. That is the way to go and that is what we have now.â€
cannabis
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/101921
Source:
http://www.ukcia.org/news/shownewsarticle.php?articleid=13339
Author:
Radio Prague via UKCIA
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