The City of Rio de Janeiro asked for a proposal to be prepared to enable the implementation of compulsory hospitalization of drug users living on the city’s streets. The information was released by Mayor Eduardo Paes (PSD) in a publication made on X, this Tuesday morning (21).
According to Paes, the request was made to the municipal health secretary, Daniel Soranz (PSD).
“It is no longer acceptable for different areas of our city to have people on the streets who do not accept any type of reception and who, even when approached on different occasions by city hall teams and police authorities, end up committing crimes,” wrote the mayor.
In the same publication, Paes also stated that “we cannot generalize but the constraints imposed on public authorities to combat the chaos we see on the city’s streets require effective instruments to prevent this routine from continuing”.
A CNN tried to contact the Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro to obtain more details regarding the proposal being prepared, such as the duration of hospitalizations and the criteria that will be used in choosing patients, but has not yet received any feedback.
Measure is not recommended by international bodies
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in a published report regarding compulsory hospitalization as a form of drug rehabilitation, stated that “compulsory drug treatment is unethical, ineffective in improving public health and safety outcomes and it is associated with negative impacts in relation to criminal recidivism and drug use.”
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the regional representation of the World Health Organization (WHO), has also taken a stance against the measure in the past.
In a technical note released in 2013, the entity stated that it considers the adoption of involuntary or compulsory hospitalization as a central strategy for treating drug dependence to be inappropriate and ineffective.
*Under the supervision of Vital Neto
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
