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Incumbent Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an has been targeting his opponent Puma Shen by attacking a drug policy he wrote 12 years ago. However, as argued, data show that prescribing drug users methadone and providing them with clean needles has effectively reduced reoffending rates. Doctors also note that patients must undergo strict screening before being prescribed methadone.

Drugs have become a political battleground in Taiwan.

Chiang Wan-an
Taipei Mayor
Legislator Shen advocates for handing out drugs and needles at community centers.

Puma Shen
Taipei mayoral candidate (DPP)
This amounts to outright stigmatization. I will take legal action because this is purely spreading false rumors.

Medically speaking, what’s the best treatment for drug addiction? One former drug addict, Hsiao Tzu, spent time at a rehab center. Her depression and hopelessness fed her addiction.

Hsiao Tzu
Recovering drug addict
I was mentally addicted, not physically. I really wanted to use drugs when I was sad. If I couldn’t sleep, I would use.

But quitting a drug addiction is extremely challenging. Looking back on past drug cases, the rate of relapse is astoundingly high.

Lin Min-chieh
Criminology professor
Because the body gets addicted to drugs, people may think that someone can quit in seven to 10 days. But some addictions aren’t so easy to quit, and they’re psychological. If you detain a person for three or five days, or even six months, the first thing they do when they get out is use.

Ministry of Justice data shows that in 2005, about 50% of all inmates were imprisoned for drug use, and 70% of them relapsed within two years. That year, Taipei launched a program to treat drug addiction with methadone and provide clean needles. More recent data shows that now only 24.8% of inmates are imprisoned for drug use, and the relapse rate has dropped to around 35%. From 2023 through June this year, Taipei issued over 930,000 clean needles, and four hospitals in the city have been providing methadone treatment.

Huang Ming-chyi
Taipei City Hospital Songde branch director
Access to methadone at the pharmacy window is strictly controlled. We use facial recognition to verify patients’ identities when they arrive. The medication is colored, so we check their mouths to make sure they’ve swallowed it.

Medical professionals emphasize that drug harm reduction programs do not encourage or condone drug use. They urge these policies not to be taken out of context or be used as a political campaign tool.

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