(Jun 20, 2018, 09:54 PM)Quest Wrote:

(Jun 20, 2018, 09:51 PM)Noble Wrote: These aren't just drug dealers that are being killed, it's drug users as well. Kinda fucked to see extrajudicial killings being ay-okay with people. Especially those who live in countries with due process.

Yeah I do think it's kinda backwards, you don't solve the problem by killing them - You solve it by setting up clinics and de-criminalising drug use and instead of punishing them, help the drug users. I'm pretty sure it was used in Portugal and it worked.

However with the Philippines being a LIC, they may not be able to afford to set up drug clinics and thus they result to extreme consequences to try and turn people away from drugs - but at the end of the day addiction is addiction and it's hard to stop that.

Quote:The Philippines should adopt radically different approaches: The shoot-to-kill directives to police and calls for extrajudicial killings should stop immediately, as should dragnets against low-level pushers and users. If such orders are  issued, prosecutions of any new extrajudicial killings and investigations of encounter killings must follow. In the short term, the existence of pervasive culpability may prevent the adoption of any policy that would seek to investigate and prosecute police and government officials and members of neighborhood councils who have been involved in the state-sanctioned slaughter. If political leadership in the Philippines changes, however, standing up a truth commission will be paramount. In the meantime, however, all existing arrested drug suspects need to be given fair trials or released.
Law-enforcement and rule of law components of drug policy designs need to make reducing criminal violence and violent militancy among their highest objectives. The Philippines should build up real intelligence on the drug trafficking networks that President Duterte alleges exist in the Philippines and target their middle operational layers, rather than low-level dealers, as well as their corruption networks in the government and law enforcement. However, the latter must not be used to cover up eliminating rival politicians and independent political voices.
To deal with addiction, the Philippines should adopt enlightened harm-reduction measures, including methadone maintenance, safe-needle exchange, and access to effective treatment. No doubt, these are difficult and elusive for methamphetamines, the drug of choice in the Philippines. Meth addiction is very difficult to treat and is associated with high morbidity levels. Instead of turning his country into a lawless Wild East, President Duterte should make the Philippines the center of collaborative East Asian research on how to develop effective public health approaches to methamphetamine addiction.