SINGAPORE - Laws regulating new psychoactive substances (NPS) will be changed in the first half of this year to allow the authorities to move more swiftly to clamp down on such drugs and traffickers.
The Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) will be amended to regulate NPS based on their potential to produce a psychoactive effect, said Minister of State for Home Affairs Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim on Monday (March 1).
NPS are currently listed individually or by their core molecular structure and substitution patterns under the Act.
"There may be a time lag from detecting to listing a novel NPS," he noted during the debate on his ministry's budget.
Amending the MDA will allow the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) to take swifter enforcement action, Associate Professor Faishal added.
His announcement comes after CNB statistics showed that NPS were among the three most commonly abused drugs last year, behind methamphetamine and heroin.
The total street value of drugs seized by the CNB last year was estimated at around $11.6 million, up from $6.49 million in 2019.
Nine per cent of abusers last year used NPS, and it was the second-most commonly abused drug among new users.
Responding to MPs on efforts to help abusers rehabilitate and reintegrate, Prof Faishal cited the Enhanced Drug Rehabilitation Regime, which was introduced for first and second-time drug abusers in 2014 to align rehabilitative interventions to abusers' risk of reoffending and level of dependency on drugs.
A recent Singapore Prison Service study found that the two-year recidivism rate for drug abusers who went through the EDRR was 8 percentage points lower than those who did not.
In 2019, the regime was enhanced to commit third-time and subsequent drug abusers who are not charged with any other criminal offences to the Drug Rehabilitation Centre, instead of being charged in court and liable for long-term imprisonment.
"We will assess the effectiveness of the 2019 enhancements when we have sufficient data," said Prof Faishal.
He noted that ex-offenders have come together to support each other and do good in the community, and said the Community Action for the Rehabilitation of Ex-offenders (Care) Network will establish a framework to support these groups and provide social networks for offenders after their release.
As for plans to make ex-offenders more employable, Prof Faishal said Yellow Ribbon Singapore - previously known as the Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises - has developed a career masterplan for key and growth sectors.
It has also come up with an accompanying skills masterplan with industry-focused pathways for inmates to continue to acquire skills after their release, he added.
Under a new Train and Place and Grow initiative, partner industries and education and training centres will offer inmates jobs and continuous training through a work-study arrangement after their release.
The initiative will be expanded from organisations in media and precision engineering to those in the logistics and infocomm sectors, with training facilities for these sectors to be set up this year, he said.
