The Act amending the Prevention of Drug Abuse Act 3 years after its enforcement – a report on application

Abstract

This study is an attempt to evaluate how the institutions, established by the amendment to the Act on prevention of drug abuse of 1 April 2011, perform in practice. The most important change to the act amended was the addition of Article 62a to the Act. This Article gives a prosecutor and court an option to discontinue criminal proceedings against individuals in possession of small amounts of intoxicants and psychotropic substances intended for private use. Furthermore, the amendment extended a scope of alternative medicinal substances implementing the principle of “treat rather than punish”. The report was compiled basing on any available statistical data provided by: courts, the Prosecution General and most of all by the Ministry of Justice. During the work on the report, a few interviews were done with the people who apply the provisions of the amended act (a policeman, a prosecutor and an advocate) and with a representative of the Ministry of Justice. The presented statistical data show that the number of discontinued proceedings connected with drug possession including those ones discontinued under Article 62a, is still relatively small. The main requirement arising from this report is the necessity for the Prosecutor General’s Office to develop proper limit values for individual psychoactive substances defining the notion of “small amounts”.