The mantra that Indonesia is “battling a drug crisis” has been used by President Joko Widodo and members of the government to continue to justify its hardline, punitive stance towards drugs. We are referring not just to the execution of drug smugglers but also the forced rehabilitation and punitive approach taken towards drug users.
Now a group of 10 prominent Indonesian health experts and academics have joined together to write an open letter, just published by prominent British medical journal The Lancet, in which they say they have “grave concerns” about the government’s approach, which they argue is based upon poor and unreliable data.
One example of bad data they bring up are the estimates (often repeated by Jokowi when asked why he would not give clemency to drug smugglers) is that 4.5 million Indonesians use drugs and up to 50 Indonesians die everyday because of drugs:
For more in-depth analysis as to why the government’s drug statistics are so awful, you can begin here, but suffice to say they’re completely unreliable for a scientific point of view.
And yet, those statistics essentially form the basis of the government’s entire heavy-handed approach to drug use. The letter writers argue that the government is ignoring data and such approaches simply don’t work:
Instead, the letter writers argue that the government should focus on implementing intervention strategies which have been empirically proven to be successful, such as “opioid substitution therapy, needle and syringe programmes, HIV treatment, and care for people who use drugs.”
The 10 signatories to the letter come from prestigious institutions including the Indonesian Drug Users Network, the University of Indonesia’s law faculty, and Jakarta’s Atma Jaya HIV-Aids Research Centre.
Although the letter frames the discussion in purely scientific terms, one of the writers, Dr Ignatius Praptoraharjo, a researcher at the faculty of medicine at Gadjah Mada University told The Guardian there was an “ethical obligation” to implement evidence-based drug policies.
Specifically Dr Ignatius said that “…despite the proven success of these interventions, political commitment and funds are lacking, and current punitive strategies in Indonesia do not provide enough space for meaningful health programs. [Instead] our limited funds are instead being used to bolster fear-based approaches, which effectively drive people in need further away from health programs.”
Read the full text of the open letter on The Lancet right here
