Myanmar replaces drug-registration prison terms with a treatment process

Myanmar removed a three-to-five-year prison penalty for failing to register for drug treatment in February 2018. The replacement process still let police refer suspected users for assessment and courts order six months in a treatment or rehabilitation centre.

The older offence linked treatment to imprisonment

Under the 1993 drug law, drug users had to register for treatment and follow health ministry directions. Failure could lead to prison. The amendment removed that registration offence and replaced the requirement with an obligation to undergo medical treatment at a prescribed or recognised centre.

Police were to send someone suspected of drug use for a preliminary medical examination and, if identified as a user, treatment. Someone could therefore enter the process through a police referral as well as through seeking care.

A court could compel six months of treatment

When a person failed to undergo examination and treatment, a police officer could apply for a court order requiring a bond: a formal promise to comply with the treatment conditions.

If the person refused to give that promise or broke a condition, the court had to send them to a health or rehabilitation centre for six months. The health ministry was responsible for providing the treatment during that period.

Breaking the prescribed rules of a centre could then lead to a conviction and unpaid community service. The amendment specified 240 to 360 hours, worked at two hours a day under supervision. Examples included cleaning, planting trees, repairing roads and bridges, and welfare work with social groups.

A higher cannabis threshold still left possession punishable

The amendment raised the quantity presumed to be held for sale from 75 to 100 grams of cannabis, cannabis essence or their combined weight. Reaching that quantity brought the statutory presumption of a sale purpose into play.

Below it, unauthorised possession still carried five to ten years in prison. Possession for sale remained punishable with at least ten years. Removing the registration offence therefore left separate drug-possession charges available against a person found with cannabis.

The new policy proposed voluntary care

Six days after the amendment, the government released its first national drug-control policy. That document recommended transforming compulsory treatment into voluntary services and expanding access to care and rehabilitation.

The law and the policy left Myanmar’s drug users facing different approaches: a stated direction towards voluntary care alongside legal powers to order treatment and punish possession.^[1][2][3]