Study on Guizhou’s Community-based Drug Rehabilitation and Recovery Model from the Perspective of Public Governance (2)

Due to the serious harms of drugs to personal health and deep influence on social development, all governments emphasize the serious crackdown on drug traffickers and elimination of drug addiction. The previous drug rehabilitation model in China emphasized the physiological detoxification of drug addicts, and social assistance and education failed to be used widely and effectively. Drug addicts were able to get rid of physiological addiction through compulsory detoxification, but they were often discriminated after they returned to the society due to the lack of social aid and education measures. They were unable to enjoy normal employment and social welfare, but were discriminated and excluded by the society. This made many drug addicts to return to the previous drug abuse subculture, and fell into the vicious circle of “drug abuse—rehabilitation—relapse—rehabilitation again.”

How to completely get rid of drug addiction and enable drug rehabilitation and recovery personnel to successfully return to the society is the focus of drug rehabilitation work over recent years. After the people’s anti-drug war started nationwide in 2005, all local governments lifted drug control work into a new level. While strictly cracking down drugs, they strengthened the management on and rescue of drug rehabilitation personnel, and solved their life insurance problems. In December 2007, China released the Anti-drug Law of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Anti-drug Law), changed the previous attitude that drug addicts must receive compulsory detoxification, and also introduced the community-based drug rehabilitation as one of the important ways for drug rehabilitation into laws and regulations for the first time. With families as the dependence and communities as the platform, community-based drug rehabilitation cancels the restriction on the personal freedom of drug rehabilitation personnel, and replaces it with humanistic assistance and education for drug rehabilitation and recovery treatment, which not only represents sound transition for drug addicts to return to the society after getting rid of addiction, but is also an effective way for sustainable development. According to the 2012 World Drug Report, 413,000 people with drug abuse behaviors were captured nationwide in 2011, including 235,000 newly found drug addicts. 171,000 drug addicts were handled through forced quarantine for drug rehabilitation according to laws, and 97,000 drug addicts were ordered to receive community-based drug rehabilitation and recovery.