Specialists call for the maximum penalty for those who deal in Tramadol in Palestinian society
Khan Younis, Publication and Information Unit:
Specialists and speakers called for the need to impose the maximum penalty on those who deal in and use Tramadol pills within Palestinian society, by amending Palestinian law so that it matches the offence committed by Tramadol dealers.
These recommendations came during a workshop organised by the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution within the Justice for All project, with the participation of a number of specialists and attended by a group of reconciliation figures and university students at the Grand Dallas Hotel in Khan Younis governorate in the south of the Gaza Strip.
At the start of the meeting, Dr. Badr Al-Safadi, head of the health education department at the Ministry of Health, stressed that Tramadol has serious negative effects on the human body, among them its effect on the nervous system and on mental health, in addition to nausea and severe headaches. He explained that young people are the largest group using this drug on the advice of bad company, and that its low price also increases the level of demand for it among citizens.
For his part, Dr. Salah Al-Araj, representing the General Directorate of Reform and Rehabilitation Centres in Khan Younis governorate, said that Tramadol is more dangerous than taking narcotics, as it helps destroy brain cells, and that the competent authorities were able to seize 35 million pills in the past period. He pointed out that the reform and rehabilitation centres receive 90 cases a month on charges of taking Tramadol, that is around 3 people a day.
On the legal measures to protect society from Tramadol, Judge Diya Al-Astal, a judge at the Khan Younis Court of First Instance, stressed that the law punishes dealers with harsher penalties than users, whom he described as patients, given our need to ease the burden on patients and reintegrate them into society. He added: "From 2008 to today we have observed a rise in the phenomenon of exploiting children as tools for dealing in and smuggling these narcotic substances, and we hope that all the competent bodies will cooperate to monitor the crossings and the tunnels and to prevent the spread of these toxic substances."
The young people taking part in the workshop called for the need to hold specialised workshops on the harms of Tramadol inside the universities, to move quickly to issue and carry out court judgments on those held in the reform and rehabilitation prisons, and to work on improving their behaviour within society.
It is worth noting that the Justice for All project has begun holding a range of public meetings with the public, addressing a set of social and legal issues that concern all citizens and finding suitable solutions to the matters raised.
