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The Minister of Justice, Alina Gorghiu, on Friday stated that there are "millions of drug users" in Romania, according to the National Anti-Drug Agency, and these people cannot be all sent to prison because they consume such substances, but they must be helped to get rid of this problem instead.
She showed that DIICOT [Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism - editor's note] prosecutors are currently overwhelmed by the very large number of drug-related files, but most of these files are for possession of small quantities, for personal consumption. Gorghiu added that in most of these cases it is about young people and if they have no antecedents and a good conduct in the rest, the prosecutor decides not to start the criminal prosecution. On the other hand, the legislation cannot require that these young people be evaluated and advised by the specialists of the National Anti-Drug Agency, and most of them do not even accept this kind of evaluation, the Minister of Justice explained.
"This topic, of drugs, is one that, unfortunately, affects Romania very seriously, but not only Romania, it also affects the entire world. We are in the second part of the ranking regarding the drug phenomenon, but this doesn't help us in any way. (...) In 2010 we were talking about 6,000 files related to the topic of drugs, in 2015 - 8,700 files, while this year, in the first eight months alone, we already have 20,000 files. While DIICOT, which has exclusive jurisdiction when it comes to drugs, has just 190 prosecutors who are involved in these issues related to organized crime. (...) Which is why we must deal with drug trafficking cases first of anything, the big the networks," stated Gorghiu.
According to her, a greater emphasis should be placed on prevention and treatment of drug users, by increasing the capacity of the institutions that deal with such problems, while in terms of combating drug trafficking, the number of prosecutors in the specialized structure of DIICOT should be increased.
Also, the Minister of Justice stated that a national registry of drug traffickers should be created, for a better monitoring and to prevent recidivism, in the context in which around 65% of the drug traffickers currently in prison are recidivists.
According to the minister, there are 1,100 people in prisons who are serving sentences for crimes related to drug trafficking, and among them 709 are recidivists with criminal records for crimes in the same category.
She also mentioned that President Klaus Iohannis sent a very clear message that this is a matter of national security when he included the topic of drug trafficking with the agenda of the next meeting of the Supreme Council for National Defence, and said that every institution with responsibilities in this field must treat it as such and come up with proposals and measures to combat the problem.
She also emphasized that the phenomenon of combating drug trafficking is a very dynamic one, given that new psychoactive substances appear every week, and 98% of them cannot be detected even through blood tests.
