Lan Ying beat Shen Boyang overturned on drug discussion. Ko Wenzhe once advocated that "drug users should be regarded as patients."

Former Taipei Mayor Ke Wenzhe. (File photo)

The Kuomintang dug out an article on drug prevention and control written by DPP Taipei mayoral candidate Shen Boyang more than 10 years ago and quoted it out of context, accusing Shen of "condoning drug use" and "supporting drugs." Taipei Mayor Chiang Wanan, who was seeking re-election, followed suit and posted a post on Facebook to criticize the article. The result was a huge upset and received hundreds of thousands of comments. In fact, Ko Wenzhe, the founding chairman of the People’s Party and former Taipei Mayor, also made a similar argument to Shen Boyang when he was in office. However, Lan Bai now throws dirty water on it just because the person speaking is different, making the outside world shake their heads.

Lanying recently uncovered Shen Boyang's 2014 article on drug prevention and control published in "Think Forum". In the article, Shen Boyang discussed drug policy from a criminological perspective, pointed out that "drugs" in English includes both drugs and narcotics, and called on the public to break the stereotype of addicts. The stereotype of simply being a "criminal" advocated that drug addiction should be regarded as a "disease" and addicts as "patients" in need of medical assistance. As a result, the blue camp twisted it into Shen Boyang's assertion that "drugs and medicines can be equated" in an attempt to downplay the harm of drugs.

In fact, Ko Wenzhe also proposed a similar concept on August 4, 2015. At that time, he was asked by reporters how to deal with the problem of drunk driving and drugs. He said that after discussing with the Taipei City Health Bureau and the Social Affairs Bureau, he came up with a "new idea", that is, drug and alcohol addiction should be treated as patients, not prisoners. In the future, medical teams will be brought into prisons to counsel people in prison due to drug and alcohol addiction.

And he said it more than once. On June 20, 2018, the Taipei City Government held a press conference for the "Polaris Anti-Drug Plan and Taipei City Drug Harm Control Center". At the meeting, Ko Wenzhe called on the public: "Everyone must start to change their minds and treat drug addicts as patients, not prisoners. Drug making Of course, drug trafficking must be treated as criminals, but if drug addicts are treated as criminals, the long-term treatment effect will not be good. The concept must be changed, so that it will be easier to achieve the goal from prevention to treatment, and then strictly ban drug production and trafficking from upstream to downstream.”

On August 27 of the same year, Ko Wenzhe attended a press conference on medical intervention for drunk driving and reiterated that "alcohol and drug addiction cannot be treated as prisoners, but must be treated as patients. The long-term results will be better." The above content can be found in press releases on the official website of the Taipei City Government.