Prison Drug Abuse is a Ticking Bomb

Prison in Padinska Skela. | Photo by Beta

Prison is a place for correction and punishment. It should not be a place for drug abuse. But two recent reports from the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhumane or Degrading Treatment, CPT, indicate a growing drug problem in many prisons in the Balkans.

Its January report on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia describes drug misuse there as a “major challenge”. In one prison visited by a CPT delegation the report noted a “rising numbers of prisoners with a substance abuse problem and the widespread availability of illicit drugs”.

In a visit to Greece last year, the CPT observed that “drugs appeared to be accessible in all the prisons visited and many prisoners admitted openly to using them”.

Prison drug abuse is not just a problem for the Balkans. Statistics from the World Health Organisation indicate abuse and lack of care across Europe. 

In prison itself, drug abuse raises the threat of HIV infection and transmission. It has been reported that between 15 and 20 prisoners may share the same needle in some institutions.

But it also affects people beyond prison walls. Drug abuse in jail increases the risk of inmates acquiring chronic communicable diseases, which then spread outside prison after the contaminated prisoners go free.

Prison management cannot approach this problem only with repressive measures and sanctions. To defuse this ticking time bomb, national authorities must employ comprehensive policies to provide care to prisoners with drug problems.

The importance of Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, prohibiting anybody from being subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment, cannot be over-emphasized.

In recent years, the CPT has not only examined the care of inmates with drug-related problems in prisons it has visited, but also evaluated services offered to prisoners with drug problems and looked into the development of prevention policies.

At a ministerial conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia, last December, the Council of Europe’s Pompidou Group brought human rights to the forefront of its member states’ drug policies.

The impact of narcotic smuggling and abuse in the Balkans region poses a major challenge. The Balkans serves as a key European drugs entry point and there is a link between smuggling and increased local consumption.

We read with much dismay news of drug abuse in prisons in the Balkans resulting at least in part from such easy access.

As an international network of policy-makers and professionals who discuss and exchange information on drug misuse and trafficking problems we regularly organise seminars and conferences on drugs in prison for prison management and staff, NGOs and government officials.

Such initiatives contribute to a better understanding of the right to health care for detainees, and help to find partners to deal with the thorny challenge of reducing drug abuse in prison.

Drug use in prison should not exist. But it does - in a number of countries increasingly so. The time has come to step up efforts to prevent this problem from exploding into something worse.

Patrick Penninckx is Executive Secretary of the Council of Europe’s Pompidou Group.

The Co-operation Group to Combat Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Drugs (known as the Pompidou Group) is an inter-governmental body formed at the initiative of the late French President Georges Pompidou. It is associated with the Council of Europe, an international organisation in Strasbourg, which comprises 47 countries and promotes democracy, human rights and the rule of law.