Civil Georgia, Georgia
March 17 2007

‘Anti-Drug Campaign’ Pledged

Lawmakers from the ruling National Movement party have launched
elaboration of a draft law envisaging confiscation of property from
drug dealers, officials said on March 16.

President Saakashvili proposed to adopt this new law as part of a
large-scale anti-drug campaign during his annual state of nation
address to the Parliament on March 15.

`I offer you to adopt a law through which drug dealers will not only
be jailed, but their property acquired through making our citizens
unhappy will be fully confiscated,’ Saakashvili told lawmakers.

In an interview with the Georgian Public Broadcaster on March 16,
Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said that drug addiction has
reached alarming scales and has turned into one of the major problems
in Georgia.

He said that unfortunately there is `high tolerance towards drug
users’ among the Georgian society and this attitude should be
changed. But he also said that `this high tolerance is not expressed
towards drug dealers.’

Merabishvili also said that unlike in neighboring countries, there
are cases of drug addiction among employees of the Georgian state
structures.

`For example in Armenia you can hardly find drug users among
officials… By the way there are almost zero per cent drug users among
our citizens of Armenian ethnicity in Akhalkalaki and Tsalka,’ he
said.

Merabishvili also noted that the Interior Ministry plans `to deprive
drug addicts of certain rights’ for example driving licenses. He also
said that the Interior Ministry considers of sending list of drug
addicts to the foreign embassies in Tbilisi and ask them not to issue
entry visas to their respective countries if requested.

He also said that breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
represent `free zones of drug trafficking.’

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress