PRESIDENT DECLARES WAR ON DRUGS

President Mikheil Saakashvili has launched a large-scale anti-drug
campaign, with efforts to tighten laws on drug dealers as well as
drug users. During his annual address to parliament on March 15,
Saakashvili proposed a legislative initiative that would envisage
confiscating property not just of drug dealers, but of their close
relatives as well.

"I propose that we adopt a law by which drug dealers not only are put
in prison, but also have their property, acquired through ruining our
people and our young people, confiscated," he sais, going on to state
this would include the property of close relatives as well, if it was
acquired through illegal activity.

Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili echoed the president's initiative
in an interview with Georgian Public Broadcasting the next day. He
said drug-addiction has reached a critical point, becoming one of the
most acute problems in the country. Merabishvili emphasized the
"unfortunate" tolerance of addicts by Georgian society, but saying
"this high tolerance doesn't extend to drug dealers."

Merabishvili said his ministry plans "to strip drug addicts of
certain rights," such as the right to have a driver's license. He
stated that the ministry will also send a list of known drug addicts
to Tbilisi-based embassies asking them not to issue visas to these people.

Merabishvili stated outright that unlike neighbouring countries such
as Armenia, drug use is a problem among state officials, and that the
breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia serve as free zones
for drug trafficking.

Chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Human Rights and Civil
Integration, MP Elene Tevdoradze, welcomes a tough fight against drug
dealers. Tevdoradze claims that any property gained at the price of
somebody's life, should be confiscated. "If we give a sentence of
life imprisonment for murder, this [drug dealing] is no milder
wrongdoing. Drugs are destroying a whole generation," she told The Messenger.

Tevdoradze's statements resemble sentiments in Saakashvili's speech,
"Everyone is equal under the law and nobody who murders people can be
considered a good person, after all drug dealers kill people."

Tevdoradze is also for the confiscation of relatives' property, if a
court or an investigation proves the property was obtained through
selling drugs, weapons or the like. But she also emphasizes a
necessary condition the investigation must be objective and unbiased
to avoid using this law as tool of revenge on somebody, "as sometimes happens".

The president's drivce to fight drug dealers is largely shared by the
parliamentary opposition as well, with only minor divergences in opinion.

"Generally we [the New Rights party] are unanimously for any sort of
rigorous fight against drug dealers and will certainly support
related legislative initiatives," said Mamuka Katsitadze from the New
Rights while talking to The Messenger.

However, regarding the confiscation of property belonging to
relatives of the dealer, Katsitadze finds this part a bit vague and
hopes it is not a mere PR opportunity. He says it must be determined
by the law who can actually be considered a 'close' relative.
"Otherwise, if due to one black sheep, they are strip the property
from descendents in the whole bloodline, it's senseless," Katsitadze says.

Katsitazde puts the blame for Georgia's drug problem on the Interior
Ministry, as the body is not keen on searching for dealer links
within ministries and other state structures. As for the users, they
should be simply considered as ill people who need help, Katsitadze says.

The opposition Democratic Front faction also backs the new campaign,
but with some reservations. MP Gia Tortladze told The Messenger
everyone in Georgia is aware of users as well as dealers, who are
often linked to and housed by the Interior Ministry. "The double
standard in this regard, when they only arrest those dealers working
on their own, and not touching the ones that are attached to them,
raises contradictions and astonishment," states Tortladze.

Tortladze says drug users are judged too harshly in Georgia, facing
large fines and even lengthy imprisonment in case of multiple
offences. He says systems like those in many European countries
should be set up, where drug addicts can be prescribed methadone and
other medicines to help them with their addiction.