International Conferences

RECOMMENDATIONS

The following recommendations were approved:
I. Drugs and psychologically harmful substances: Legislation:

1 .Gradual application of punishment for drug crime and abuse of psychologically harmful substances, in accordance with the seriousness of the offence. Severe punishment should be prescribed for smuggling, manufacture, cultivation and working with international drug mafias. Internal drug dealing and consumption should be less severe, while addicts who volunteer for treatment should not be punished at all.

2. Drug laws must give special priority to the protection of the young, by prescribing sever punishment for introduction of drugs to the young under a certain age, or exploiting them in the spread of drugs.

3. Domestic law should, as soon as possible, be amended to incorporate provisions of international conventions, especially that on trade in illegal drugs and psychologically harmful substances of 1988, and Its provisions on returns, precedents, non-listed chemicals and supervised delivery.

4. Passing laws to simplify procedures for investigation and pursuit of illegal drug trade across national borders, in sea, air and land, or in free trade zones, or through the post.

5. Pass legislation that would encourage informing on drug smuggling, manufacture or growth, as well as on joining drug gangs. l.a.6 Giving urgent legal priority to drug cases so that they may be investigated and dealt with faster. Recommendation should be made to implement specialisation system in criminal law and general prosecution.

II. International co-operation

1.Urging all countries to join without delay the 1988 Convention on illegal trade in drugs and psychologically harmful substances, and other related conventions.

2. Lend material and moral support to the United Nations programme, to enable it to provide better services to anti-drug organizations.

3. Encourage and support exchange of information among national anti-drug departments and other concerned regional and international bodies, especially with respect to new lines of trade, international drug groups, new smuggling methods and the developments in the use of unlisted substances. To promote the formation by anti-drugs bodies in different countries of joint teams and to provide their members with the required legal protection.

4. Support the role of the Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences and the World Health Organization in activating national and regional bodies in drawing up a scientific approach to tackle the drug problem in every country or region.

5. Urge government to encourage customs services in their co-operation with the International Customs Origination through its regional offices.

6. To make use of programmes, field studies and scientific publications offered by regional and international organizations, as well as successful experiments in some countries for reducing drugs demand.

III. Strengthening and enhancing the role of anti-drugs bodies:

1. Training
a. Training of all prevention and related staff should be full and well co ordinated and should be subjected to the same supervision that links them together within proper and scientific planning.

b. Security officers training should emphasise their commitment to proper application of the law, stressing the importance of human rights, which the law is laid out to protect. They should also be urged to provide concerned bodies with all available and accurate information they need, whose publication is not deemed detrimental to the prevention effort.

c. Court officials training, in particular, should concentrated on issues related to international co-operation on exchange of offenders, handing over of drugs, legal and technical assistance, apprehension of funds earned through illegal trade in drugs, in preparation for taking the measures required to confiscate them.

d. Customs officers' training should emphasise the importance of local effective co-ordination with the police authorities in their own countries, and the ways to benefit from advanced methods offered by the International Customs Organization.

e. Training of criminal judges dealing with drug-related cases should include the holding of seminars dealing with the best ways to implement the principles of self-persuasion and discretionary powers which are conducive to the aims of the law and dictated by the special nature of drugs crime.

Enhance the material and technical means available to security and customs authorities by acquiring new scientific methods and techniques in order to upgrade their performance in accordance with the risks they face.

g. Attract the expertise of economic experts to benefit those working in combating illegal drugs and to facilitate their efforts in tracking down money laundering operations arising from the illegal trade in drugs and psychologically harmful substances.

2. Judicial data and statistics:

a. Great care should be given to judicial statistics to cover all information gleaned from judicial files and the communiques addressed to relevant bodies and the information obtained from treatment and rehabilitation institutions.

b. To promote the use of intelligence approach in dealing with information, and encourage the incorporation of such an approach in national prevention strategies, with the aim of providing accurate regular information and to help policy makers and executives improve their planning and performance.

c. To call for setting up a database containing as many countries as possible, in order to provide the relevant bodies with all needs of prevention, treatment and after-care and to help with meeting the demand.

3. Study and research.

a. Promote field studies closely related to the issue and provide financial and moral support to such work and to centres engaged in it.

b. Seek to prepare a comprehensive approach to prevention, based on Islamic principles, in the form of a critical look into the philosophical background of the status quo, combining social, educational, legal and religious aspects. This new Islamic understanding should then be published and made widely available in all Muslim countries to guide their efforts of prevention.

c. To urge universities and other centres of research to co-operate and participate in scientific research on combating drugs, especially with respect to the real needs and essential balanced requirements for drawing up a comprehensive strategy.

4. Non-Governmental Organizations

a. Provide greater support to NGO's working in this field, and bring about proper co-ordination between them and government departments, for a better utilisation of their constructive work.

b. Promote the formation of NGO's to participate, according to the national plan, in prevention, care, education and treatment of problems arising from drug addiction and in caring for addicts and their families.

5. Money Laundering

The Conference recommends that special efforts be made to combat the laundering of money earned through dealing in drugs. It further stresses the importance of supporting intentional, regional, and local co-operation. It urges those countries that have not yet adopted laws and regulations and national programmes to combat money laundering, to do so by the 2002, according to the relevant provisions of the 1988 UN Convention for the prevention of illegal trading in drugs and psychologically harmful substances.

6. Cultivation

The Conference recommends the restriction of the availability of plant origin, by curbing their cultivation and replacing them with other beneficial plants.

7. Education:

General Issues

a.To call for the formation in every country of a supreme national committee with the necessary authority to perform its duty and carry out public education. The committee should be supported by a central body to assess the problems an regular bases and determine its nature and development, and lay down scientific standards by which progress of prevention, evaluation of methods used and proposal of alternatives can be made. It would also collect information and gather facts.

b. Merging programmes of prevention, treatment and training with those of social work, as part of international healthcare programmes, so that efforts can be brought together under one umbrella combining training, treatment, follow-up, research and evaluation.

Religious education

a. Give more attention to treatment through faith and to Islamic principles of dealing with addicts, and urge preachers to promote this kind of treatment.

b. Instill religious belief in the minds of the young by spreading Islamic teachings relating to drug abuse and correcting any existing misconceptions.

c. Promote religious education within medical practices and centres and in hospitals caring for drug addicts.

d. To train special preachers to work on the education of young people, especially the more vulnerable who are targeted by drug pushers.

Education
To call for the institution of a compulsory educational programme at all levels of education, aimed at enlightening young people to the dangers of illegal drugs. Special attention should be given to children and adolescents, for whom specially designed educational programmes should be devised.

Education through the media

a. There is a need for a comprehensive and clear policy on the role of the media in this regard. This should be achieved with co-operation and co-ordination with all media and information institutions, on the one hand, and all concerned religious, educational, social and cultural bodies, on the other. It should be based on knowledge gained through on-going research and established facts. Media programmes should be tested using sample groups from the targeted sectors before presenting them to the larger public.

b. Call Upon Arab and international media groups to produce and present programmes, plays and popular productions that deal with various aspects of drug abuse and addiction, in a credible, realistic and ethical manner.

c. To seek to create an enlightened public opinion with respect to drugs and their harmful effect, through the exposition of their threat to public health and public morals and values.

d. Give more attention to vulnerable groups such as children and adolescents, and endeavour to provide religious, cultural, entertainment, social and recreational facilities to occupy their time.

8. Family and social aspects
Being the main environment in which children are brought up, whose well-being ensure the health of society as a whole, the family has been accorded utmost importance in Islam. Islam promotes marriage and the building of family life on understanding, love, and affection in a way that eliminates conflict and strife. It urges bringing up children and raising them in a healthy environment in which they are taught and brought up properly, especially with regard to the friends and company they choose to associate with.

There is also a need for co-operation between schools and parents when seeking to solve the various problems facing children, such as coming in contact with drugs through friends at school, and saving them from becoming victims of drug abuse and addiction.

9. Addiction treatment

a. To call for setting up a comprehensive strategy to combat addiction, using all available means and taking into account the different levels. Such strategy should be based on the following:

b. Setting -up funds for the treatment of addicts in countries where they have not yet been set up. Such funds should be partially or wholly subsidised by confiscated money or fined imposed on convicted drug smugglers and dealers.

c. building special centres, with a comprehensive range of specialities and independent of psychiatric clinics, to provide care and treatment to addicts. Addicts should be separated according to certain categories and use be made of those who had benefited from treatment.

d. Emphasis should be made on after-treatment social care to protect patients from relapsing into the abuse of drugs and help them to be rehabilitated and absorbed into society again.