Up to 1,000 kids have parents who are drug addicts - Sedqa

Speaking during a business breakfast dealing with Victims of Addiction and Ex-Prisoners organised by the Education Ministry and the Foundation for Social Welfare as part of European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, agency director George Grech also pointed to “alarming” increases in the number of female drug addicts reported using drugs.

“While the ratio of males to females was only 8:2, today it has risen to 6:4,” Dr Grech said.

He pointed out how this brought with it a myriad of social complications, ranging from prostitution and dependency on abusive partners.

He presented figures that revealed that between January 2010 and June 2010, Seqda received 44 new clients (34 males and 10 females), along with its existing 1005 clients (832 males and 173 females).

Grech also said that top locality male addicts report as their ‘home locality’ Zabbar came in top with 6.2%. Bormla came in second with 6% and Qormi was third with 5.6%.

While Valletta was fourth highest (with 5.4%), Grech pointed out that following in-depth research investigation revealed that the vast majority of clients originated from merely a handful of streets.

He also underlined that it was “worrying” that so many drug addicts report having children – adding that the figure could be as high as 964. “Of course, some might be reported twice by both mother and fathers who are both in our care, but we can concretely affirm that the true figure is at least 771.”

Criticising the UK drug policy that recently ‘ring fenced’ its drug rehabilitation services, Grech affirmed that Maltese policy should follow European trends and move away from incarceration and more towards health-treatment and rehabilitation.

He said how the way forward is developing a new drug policy, shifting from a repressive drug policy to a more health-oriented policy, and adhering to a commitment to address the problem of the fates of children born to drug addicted parents.

George Busuttil, Secretary General at Fondazzjoni Mid-Dlam ghad-Dawl, said that the top objective when dealing with ex-inmates is to ensure that they stay out of prison.

He emphasised the various pitfalls that await prisoners due to shortfalls in the prison system, ranging from lack of rehabilitation structure, lack of proper sensitivity, and assistance in forming a plan that looks towards life after incarceration.

He said that when the system fails and a prisoner falls into a vicious cycle of repeated incarceration, the families are direct victims. “Many leave prison late during the day without a cent in their pockets and with no idea of where to spend the night,” he said.

He emphasised the need for alternative punishment that is a viable alternative to prison. “Incarcerated drug victims need special programmes,” he said, adding that prison “sorely needs” a classification system that considers the needs of different inmates.

“To decrease crime, one must includes everyone,” he said.

Busuttil also hit out at media reports by Maltatoday for reporting that sentenced inmates where being let out into the community without an escort – something that the Justice Ministry was not aware of. Following the report, Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici ordered the immediate suspension of the “ad hoc policy”.

Busuttil said that it was “unfair that because someone chose to wrote in the paper, a system that was yielding valuable work was stopped abruptly.”

A spokesperson for the Justice Ministry later intervened to assure those in attendance that the initiative “was not shelved”, and that “work started from day one to try and remedy the situation.”

Speaking for Caritas – Malta, Ernest Cherrett emphasised the need for the current syringe distribution system to be replaced by a syringe exchange programme whereby syringes given out to addicts are tracked.

“It is not enough to simply say how many syringes were given out over the year – more needs to be done.”