MHA to review drug laws to combat rising threat of new psychoactive substances

SINGAPORE — Rogue chemists are swiftly producing new drug variants by changing their chemical structures, resulting in these drugs being made available faster than the authorities can test and classify them as controlled drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

To combat the rising threat of these new psychoactive substances, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is reviewing laws to stay ahead, Mr Amrin Amin said. The Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs was speaking on Monday (March 2) during the debate on the ministry's budget.

New psychoactive substances, which mimic the effects of traditional drugs, rank as the third most commonly abused drug in Singapore. Last year, 414 or 11.7 per cent of drug abusers took such drugs, Mr Amrin said.

Also, there has been a significant increase in the number of new psychoactive substances being detected worldwide. While only 126 of these variants were detected in 2009, the number has increased seven-fold to 892 within 10 years, he added.

“More than ever, we need strict laws to stay ahead of drug trends, robust enforcement and effective preventive drug education.” 

The proposed changes, which will be announced at a later date, will add on to MHA’s efforts since 2010 to list new psychoactive substances on the Misuse of Drugs Act, as well as an amendment to the Act in 2013 to enact a Fifth Schedule to better deal with these drugs.

The Fifth Schedule allowed new psychoactive substances to be temporarily listed for up to a year, with the possibility of extending it for another year, so that the Central Narcotics Bureau can seize the substances and restrict their circulation while research and industry consultation are conducted.

Talking about the rising liberal attitude towards drugs, he said that such an attitude continues to be a threat as the media tends to gloss over documented harms of cannabis such as mental disorders, and that has fuelled a wave worldwide to legalise cannabis use.

MHA therefore intends to sharpen preventive drug education with a focus on correcting misinformation about drugs and addressing changing attitudes towards cannabis.

Through efforts such as a one-stop repository for cannabis-related information and an anti-cannabis information booklet for educators, facts about cannabis will be made more easily accessible to all, particularly to young people, Mr Amrin added.

He also said that pro-legalisation camps “conveniently ignore” the social costs of legalising drugs which include “lives lost, families destroyed, increased crime”.

This was a point brought up as well during the debate by Mr Tan Wu Meng, Member of Parliament for Jurong Group Representation Constituency.

Mr Tan cited a study by the Nanyang Technological University that found the total cost of drug crime to be as high as S$1.2 billion in 2015.

Noting that this was the case even as the drug abuse rates here are much lower than other countries, he said: “The cost is not just about dollars and cents. It is a human cost, a cost in our people’s lives.”

Mr Tan referred to another study here on intergenerational offending, which found that one in five inmates who are drug-abusing parents have children who also committed crimes.

He said: “Sir, this is a human cost. It is a cost that can affect and devastate a family across more than one generation. It tells us that when drugs poison a family, it can poison not just the current generation, but the prospects of the next... The poison of drugs can exacerbate inequality in a society."