1st ever Drug Situation Monitoring Centre opens in Georgia
The employee uptake selection process for the new centre will start next month. Photo: RFE/RL.
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The Georgian Justice Ministry has opened the first ever Drug Situation Monitoring National Centre in Tbilisi which will have to respond to drug-related challenges in the country.
The ministry says that to open the centre they have been “closely cooperating” with the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) over the past five years.
Collection of information connected with drugs, analysing the information, establishing the evidence-based practical methodology, making reports and communicating with international organisations dealing with drug issues, which will help to develop, national, anti-drug policy, will be the major functions of the innovative center,” the Justice Ministry has stated earlier today.
The centre will be chaired by the head of the Justice Ministry Department of Public International Law, who will be accountable to the Interagency Coordinating Council against Drug Addiction [which is chaired by justice minister].
The council includes officials from the Interior and Health ministries, from the Ministry of Reconciliation and Civil Equality, Education Ministry, Prosecutor’s Office and experts.
Employees for the center will be hired between February and March of 2020.
The Interagency Coordinating Council against Drug Addiction made the decision to open the centre in March 2018.
The EU-Georgia Association Agreement and the visa deal with the EU encouraged the creation of the centre.
Police have detained a Georgian citizen for the purchase and possession of 65 pills of Suboxone in the western Georgian region of Samegrelo. The crime is punishable by eight to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment.
The Georgian Interior Ministry reports that they have detained eight individuals for drug crimes over the past several days. Five of the detainees are drug traffickers, the ministry says.
The Georgian Interior Ministry has destroyed narcotic and psychotropic drugs worth three million USD (9 million GEL), confiscated during the investigation of 765 different cases around the country, the ministry has reported earlier today.
The Interior Ministry has destroyed narcotic substances worth approximately 55 million GEL ($20 mln/€ 18 mln). The drugs were seized during 737 investigating operations conducted around the country at different times, the Ministry reported.
Georgia has become the 41st member state of the Pompidou Group, which is dedicated to combating drug abuse and illicit trafficking.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs has been provided with special equipment within the framework of the EU Action Against Drugs and Organised Crime (EU-ACT) project.
The Central Criminal Police Department has identified a group of drug dealers selling narcotics online and arrested one Kazakh citizen identified as A.A.
The Georgian government will use all the instruments to reduce prices on medicines, said Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia earlier today.
A minor has been detained for illegal purchase and storage of large quantities of drugs, says the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
A bill has been registered in the Georgian parliament to define small and large quantities of several drugs in order to avoid unjust prison sentences.