Georgia to eye initiative on drug addicts rehabilitation

Georgian Parliament will consider President Mikheil Saakashvili's initiative on the rehabilitation of drug addicts in the first reading at a plenary meeting on March 16, Parliament's Vice-Speaker Gigi Tsereteli said.

Speaking at the Parliament on Feb.28, Saakashvili proposed to liberalize the law on drug addicts and proposed to direct part of the funds transferred to the state budget as a punishment for drug crimes, at the treatment of these persons.

The initiative was discussed by the parliamentary committees on health, legal affairs and human rights together with representatives of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Justice in early March. It was decided to establish an alternative rehabilitation center for drug addicts, one of the funding sources of which will be the funds received to the state budget as a punishment for drug crimes.

The Rehabilitation Center, construction of which has already started in Bazaleti (Mtskheta-Mtianeti region, Eastern Georgia), will open this year. It is supposed that shops and workshops will be built in the territory of the center, where drug addicts can work.


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