THE EUROPEAN UNION LAW ON VIOLENCE REDUCTION OF NARCOTIC DRUG ENFORCEMENT

Abstract

         The EU has a policy to implement legal measures for soft drug offenders, in order to reduce the penalty level (Harm Reduction) and to adopt alternative enforcement measures other than imprisonment, such as rehabilitation, probation, training. training, parole, or other similar penalties, with the aim to reduce the number of the inmates in the prisons. By this means, the imprisonment shall be applied only to the offenders with heavy penalties (Hard Drugs Offender). As a result, there are many developed novel measures to reduce the violence from the drug uses, especially the measures related to the medical and public health laws. For instance, the decriminalization, the legislative policies reducing the violence in the enforcement of the drug cases, the classification of the narcotic substances, the appropriate classification of the narcotic substances for the crime, the possession, the penalty levels, the proportional drug related punishment for the offenders, and the health and safety measures, such as, the use of substitutes, the handing out syringes, the use of the drugs safely and sustainably. The above are the new approaches and innovations which Thailand should study, in order to decrease the danger of the violence and the use of drugs, and to protect the society. Therefore, this study recommends that the suppression by the criminal justice system and the imposing of the severe crimes against the drug users should be abolished. Furthermore, the legal measures to reduce the violence and the enhancement of the medical and public health legal measures should be endorsed, in order to encourage the personal health care, to reduce harm from drug use and to protect the society.