Willing victims

Today, we are due to be stricken off the WHO list of SARS-stricken countries. Soon after that, we expect travel advisories issued against visiting this country would be lifted. The ban on the entry of Filipino contract workers in several Middle Eastern countries should be lifted as well.

From most indications, the plague has been stopped here. There have been no new cases reported, no new deaths to grab the headlines and precipitate panic.

We’ll have to hand it to the best efforts of the task force assigned to contain the plague. The Health Department did a pretty good job in tracking down infected persons and imposing quarantines on those suspected of having contracted the disease. The airport management has maintained a standard of vigilance that compensated for lack of equipment and impressed the rest of the region.

In the face of a region-wide emergency, we did pretty well.

The SARS-related casualties were all due to entry of infected individuals from abroad. Our medical ad health personnel did better than most of our regular investigative agencies in building contact lists and mapping the movement of infected persons. That allowed us to immediately move to contain the spread of the deadly virus.

In the US, after the September 11 attacks, firemen and other civil defense workers performed heroically and were proclaimed as heroes. As the plague threatened the region, health professionals found themselves on the frontline of a deadly battle against a plague without an antidote.

When this crisis finally dissipates, we should find time to honor those who found the courage to perform their duties when it was perilous to do so.

Canada, the source of our first casualty, is out of danger. Taiwan is still grappling with the plague. We are not sure, given appallingly spotty reporting, how well China has coped with this calamity.

Beijing’s authorities have resorted to draconian measures. Thousands have been put in quarantine. The death penalty was decreed on those defying quarantine restrictions and causing new infections.

As we gained ground battling the spread of this plague, this thought crossed my mind often: why can’t we be as effective and as concerted in battling that other long-running scourge – drug abuse.

One study estimates that as many as two million Filipinos are hooked on banned substances. The most common of these substances is shabu, originally produced in quantity in China but now manufactured in secret labs here.

Drug abuse is an absolute pestilence. Those who are not killed by their own addiction cause harm to others or otherwise ruin themselves.

To be sure, the casualty rate from abuse of banned substances run several thousand times more than the few hundred killed by SARS. But the alarm over drug abuse has been many times more muted than the general panic sparked by the early casualties of SARS.

No draconian measures were enacted to stop the plague of drug abuse. There has been no forced rehabilitation of addicted persons like there was forced quarantine of persons remotely suspected of having contracted the virus.

There was a slight whimper from the self-appointed guardians of human rights when entire communities were put under quarantine. Those expressions of unease were quickly snowed under by compelling concern over public safety.

Should forced rehabilitation of drug addicts be resorted to in order to stop the pestilence of drug abuse, we might hear louder voices of protest from those who will tend to put individual liberty ahead of public safety. This could be the reason why no government has resorted to the same draconian measures that succeeded in containing the SARS epidemic.

Obviously, there are substantial and qualitative differences between victims of a bizarre virus and victims of drug abuse.

The most obvious difference is that those who could be afflicted by SARS did not do so by choice. Those trapped in banned substances are willing victims. They had the choice of taking the path of reason and obeying the dictate of wellness. But they chose the path of addiction.

But if we forcibly restrict the freedom of movement of those unwillingly victimized by a virus, isn’t there greater justification in restricting the freedoms of those who willingly fall victim to the pestilence of drug abuse?

If we herd known drug-dependents and force them to plant trees on the denuded hillsides and bananas in the swamps, will we be violating their basic human rights?

If the freedom of movement of those possibly afflicted by a virus may be restricted in the name of public safety, why can’t we restrict the movement of those evidently afflicted by drug abuse? They are, by their own free will, a menace to public safety.

There are, as well, obvious logistical limitations to putting two million drug dependent Filipinos under some form of quarantine. Government simply does not have the resources to house and feed them until we are sure they have kicked the addiction and are no longer threats to the community.

But we cannot simply preach on the evils of drug abuse. Over the years, intensive information campaigns have barely contained the spread of this other epidemic in our midst.

For as long as there is demand for banned substances, our enforcement agencies may continue raiding shabu laboratories to little avail. The sheer profitability of the drug trade justifies the risks of engaging in the production of illegal substances.

We have seen, in the case of the SARS epidemic, how tough and authoritative responses by government can contain the deadliest of viruses. Within weeks, governments in the region set up a network of control and monitoring. Scientific information was exchanged quickly and freely.

Why can’t we approximate the same toughness and authoritativeness in dealing with the scourge of drug abuse?

Why have we been unable to go beyond cracking down on producers and distributors of illegal substance and, in the interest of public safety, crack down on the users as well?

While we have passed tougher measures criminalizing production and distribution of banned substances, why have we been unable to criminalize the users of these substances?