Guji challenges Jiang Wanan and Shen Boyang to start a substantive debate on drug policy

The Taipei mayoral election has recently been dominated by the issue of "drugs". Mayor Chiang Wanan, who is seeking re-election from all walks of life, and Democratic Progressive Party candidate Shen Boyang came out to have a good debate. Even the KMT Central Committee expressed its approval today (4th). Former North City Councilman and well-known YouTuber "Guji" Qiu Weijie jumped out to call out Chiang Wanan. As the director of the Taipei City Poison Control Center, he entered into a real policy debate with Shen Boyang, "I believe that the mayor who fights drugs to the end will not lose."

Guage posted on Facebook today, "Between 2000 and 2010, a new international view emerged on the drug problem, which believed that in addition to physiological factors, drug addiction is also a major psychological problem. One of the reasons why many addicts are unable to quit drugs is because of loneliness, so instead of letting them hide in the dark, it is better to replace punishment with treatment and add a variety of harm reduction measures to reduce the impact on society."

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"In the 1990s, Portugal was one of the countries with the worst heroin poisoning in the world, with nearly 1% of the population having a record of drug use. In 2000, drug decriminalization measures were implemented (not legalization, the use and possession of large quantities of drugs are still illegal), which successfully reduced the number of H-infections caused by injection drug use. The number of IVs has been reduced, and the number of drug overdose deaths has been the lowest in Western Europe for a long time. Switzerland has achieved outstanding results in the 1990s by adopting a four-pillar policy: "prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement." It is considered to be an earlier example of drug harm reduction than Portugal."

Guji continued: "What was uncovered this week was an article written by Shen Boyang on the Xiangxiang Forum in 2014 under the pseudonym "Pu Ma". At that time, he was a doctoral student in criminology and did not hold any public office. The article mainly criticized New Taipei City's campus urine screening proposal, and Class differences in law enforcement; the phrase "providing drug users with drugs and clean needles" has been used to make a big fuss, but similar medicalization practices have been implemented in Switzerland for 30 years. Moreover, Shen Boyang also stated this week that Taiwan's current situation is not suitable for decriminalization. "

"Although Taiwan has not moved as fast as Europe in the past 20 years, in the practical field, it has indeed followed the direction of "replacing punishment with treatment" in combating the drug problem: it began to promote clean needles and methadone replacement therapy from 2005 to 2006, when the Democratic Progressive Party was in power. In 2009, possession of small amounts of third- and fourth-level drugs was changed to an administrative penalty of fines plus training, when the Kuomintang was in power. This is a policy promoted by the blue and green governments."

"Anti-drugs is a universal position with social consensus. Jiang Wanan is anti-drug, and so is Shen Boyang. Questioning the effectiveness of certain anti-drug measures is a normal policy debate. But to take a sentence out of an academic review that talked about campus screening 12 years ago and call it 'glorifying drugs' is to replace debate with rhetoric. Yin Wei only said during the live broadcast a few days ago that he wanted to fight a head-on election campaign. The words are still ringing in his ears, which is very disappointing."

Finally, Guji shouted: "Shen Boyang has proposed to debate drug policy one-on-one with Jiang Wanan and Li Sichuan this week. I suggest that Jiang Wanan engage in a real policy debate as he is also the director of the Taipei City Drug Control Center. I believe that the mayor who is anti-drug to the end will not lose."

☆One less drug means more health, Liberty Times reminds you to stay away from drugs☆