Thread by @sharanvkaur

earlier this year, we met a friend who does neuroscience research overseas. we talked about their work for a while, and also abt ~drugs~

specifically NS research on drugs like ketamine and LSD being used to treat mental illnesses

couple of days later, both V and I got this ad

it's a Very Expensive (SGD 120,000 per week!) drug rehab facility in switzerland. i'm gonna skip discussing the creepiness of our phones listening in on us 🥴

i didn't realise the significance of the ad until a few months later, when i saw this tweet

https://twitter.com/kixes/status/1305853153015980033

so if you're struggling with addiction, and you're filthy fucking rich, hop on a plane out of here and deal with it in a fancy rehab centre somewhere.

but if you're poor, you struggle alone or accept that you'll be punished before you get help.

last month, as i was watching @kixes' discussion with Helen Clark, i wondered why we absolutely refuse to look at the drug problem through a public health lens.

https://twitter.com/tjc_singapore/status/1329366647279214592?s=20

at the same time, i was watching Netflix's #howtofixadrugscandal and found this article

https://twitter.com/WBUR/status/1327287356802666497

it got me wondering about drug overdoses in singapore. there have to be some right? at least more than the number of people we hang for drug crimes every year?

when i say there's absolutely zero info...

i did however find a paper published last year with some alarming stats.

it's a small study, of 42 people who sought 'treatment' before their deaths.

27 suicides, 15 accidents - 7 of which were accidental overdoses.

~ 60% of deaths occured within a year of their last visit.

63% were struggling with mental illness.

57% had previous drug-related offences.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

(an unspecified number of unnatural deaths related to gambling addiction was excluded from the study.)

the National Addictions Management Service (NAMS) is a facility at IMH, where these cases sought treatment.

the part that really startled me were the numbers that had died after within a month of their last visit to NAMS.

This is the *first* time such a study has been conducted in Singapore.

Our insistence on treating this as a criminal problem instead of a public health issue costs us so much money - we spent 467 MILLION on CNB, prison services, drug 'rehab' centres, etc in one year alone.

2/3 of our prison pop is there for drug offences - mostly possession, consumption.

we've built an infrastructure of criminalization and law enforcement based on very little science and we pour millions into it, bc we're too stubborn to change our minds

straitstimes.com/singapore/cour…

we keep this meat grinder going, asking zero questions about who is disproportionately affected and why.

https://twitter.com/BuatDemokrasi/status/1307176568083472384

so when shanmugam talks about science and rationality...

we *know* that plenty of singaporeans struggling with drug addiction get help elsewhere. thailand’s only 5k/week!

but how do you pretend there’s equality when some people get help and some get DRC and criminal records?

https://twitter.com/kixes/status/1335203035383955457

when some people can afford a lot of drugs so it must be for personal consumption la haha surely not trafficking!

https://twitter.com/sharanvkaur/status/1305552516294221824

so when the govt doesn’t want to answer questions about prison population by race, i have questions

https://twitter.com/sharanvkaur/status/1311236852230184960

when these number are so out of whack, you SHOULD have questions!

https://twitter.com/kixes/status/1305856719462031362

and we need so much more data about the success of DRCs that go beyond ‘recidivism’.

are people getting *help*? are they dealing the multiple factors that might’ve led to addiction?

how could things be different if this was under the purview of MOH instead of MHA?