Citizens tip-off increases
PEOPLE are now more open to reporting suspicious activities that occur in their communities says Home Affairs and Immigration Ministry permanent secretary Mason Smith.
When asked about the Pacific being used as a transit point for drugs, Mr Smith said information regarding drugs nowadays was mostly gathered by citizens.
“Most of the information we get now are from citizens who are concerned with regards to drugs being manufactured or being imported into Fiji for use in the community,” he said.
To rid the region of such problems, he said, the people and governments must work together.
“The whole nation must first create awareness that drugs harm our children and our society, and it certainly is an economic burden to the nation because we have to rehabilitate drug addicts.
“It’s not only the ministry that’s working towards it, not only the police, this is a whole nation’s effort.”
Mr Smith said a narcotics Bill may be coming into the works in the future to help with the rehabilitation of addicts and also educate citizens on the dangers of drugs.
“Looking at legislation, we have a narcotics strategy that’s going to be submitted to Parliament soon,” he said.
“We have an action plan we’re working on with other ministries, for instance, working with the Ministry of Education to improve awareness, our schools.
“And we’re working with the Ministry of Health to ensure we can rehabilitate those drug addicts.
“We’re working with our development partners and donors to look at setting up things like the proposed narcotics Bill, so Fiji is able to deal effectively with the threat that’s facing us.
“We need to throw resources at it and we need to build the capacity of our people to understand what they’re dealing with, and that’s the plan going forward.” specifically in