Newsflash Georgia: “Zero Tolerance” Affects Public Health in Georgia

The OSI International Harm Reduction Development Program publishes periodic newsflashes highlighting recent developments in international efforts to reduce harms associated with drug use.

Alternative Georgia, a nongovernmental organization that seeks to improve the effectiveness of Georgia’s drug policy, has written to Chairperson of the Georgian Parliament Nino Burjanadze to express concern about the rise in forced testing and exorbitant fines imposed by the country in August as part of its “Zero Tolerance” campaign against crime. The fine for drug possession is now 500 GEL—around 296 USD, or 22% of the gross national income per capita in Georgia.

Since the fine was raised, the number of people tested for drugs has increased by almost 13 times—from 985 people in the period of January to April 2006 to 12,801 people in the same period of 2007. Individuals can be brought in at will on suspicion of drug use by police. Local civil society organizations highlight this increase as a hazard to civil rights, as citizens are required to accompany police to the site of testing, although they can refuse to be tested—and a draft law introduced in April would make refusing to be tested the same as testing positive for drugs or alcohol, with all relevant legal consequences.

At the same time, governmental response to the public health effects of drugs has been limited. In Georgia, where an estimated 63.9% of HIV infections are transmitted through injection drug use, substitution treatment, drug treatment, and needle exchanges are available only to a limited number of people: according to 2005 estimates, of the 250,000 estimated number of drug users, only 603 receive treatment.

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For more information, please contact Dato Otiashvili, dato@altgeorgia.ge, +995 77 47 20 47, or Elizabeth Eagen, eeagen@osi.hu, +36 30 626 6919.

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