Drug policy and public health experts have urged a total overhaul of the country’s drug policy, saying the “outdated” Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 does more harm than good to Filipino communities.

At a dialogue organized by the Drug Policy Reform Initiative, harm reduction advocates argued that the country’s “war on drugs” approach, enabled by the two-decade-old Republic Act No. 9165, continues to punish poverty and vulnerability while neglecting care and rehabilitation.

“Harm reduction is caring for everyone in the community by meeting people where they’re at,” said Arline Santos, executive director of the Institute for Politics and Governance.

“We’ve spent years criminalizing drug use, but the result has only been fear, stigma, and more violence. It’s time to start seeing people whose lives happen to include drugs as members of our communities, too,” Santos added.

Atty. Tetay Mendoza, convenor of the Drug Policy Reform Initiative, said that people whose lives include drugs remain among the most stigmatized and dehumanized sectors in the country.

“When our drug laws immediately reduce people to violent criminals rather than citizens, they strip away basic human dignity. Our laws equate drug use with moral failure, and in doing so, they fail to uphold the rights and dignity of Filipinos,” she said.

Mendoza called for a “paradigm shift” from punishment to public health, stressing that harm reduction “means creating policies that care rather than punish.”

Meanwhile, public health expert Dr. RJ Naguit of the Philippine Society of Public Health Physicians cited the Dangerous Drugs Board’s National Household Survey, which found a national drug prevalence of 2.05 percent, compared with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s global figure of 5.6 percent.

“The government’s own data show that the Philippines’ rate of drug use has been below the global average since 2019, yet our response has been disproportionately violent,” Naguit said.

“The fact is, our country’s drug problem has been overstated to justify violent and punitive policies. We must invest in dignified and evidence-based strategies that save lives,” he added.

House Bill No. 11004, or the proposed Public Health Approach to Drug Use Act of 2024, filed by Akbayan Party-list Rep. Perci Cendaña, seeks to adopt a state policy that approaches drugs through a public health lens.

The measure proposes a ban on arbitrary and unlawful interference with privacy, torture, corporal punishment, and misrepresentation of information.

“The ultimate goal is to move from fear to care,” Santos said.

“Safe communities aren’t built through punishment but through understanding, support, and reform. This means ending Tokhang, ending forced detention in facilities, and giving people choices.”