The hemispheric Drug Strategy, approved by the OAS General Assembly in June 2010, states that drug dependency is a chronic, relapsing disease that must be dealt with as a core element of public health policy. The Strategy calls on member states to “explore the means of offering treatment, rehabilitation and recovery support services to drug dependent offenders as an alternative to criminal prosecution or imprisonment”. As a result, Drug Treatment Courts (DTC) have been established in a number of member states as an alternative to incarceration.
In October, 2011, the OAS’s Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), in conjunction with the Canadian government, sponsored a training workshop in Trinidad. This training program was designed to facilitate the establishment of DTC in Trinidad and The Bahamas. A delegation of 9 professionals from various sectors of the legal, judicial, law enforcement and health professions in The Bahamas participated in the training session. In February 2012, there was a follow up workshop held in Toronto, Canada and a team of 6 professionals, including members from the first workshop participated.
The delegates subsequently recommended that at a DTC should be established as a cogent step in the right direction in efforts to combat the prevalence of drug use and abuse in The Bahamas. Participants noted that the benefits of a DTC in The Bahamas far outweighed the burdens of the system. They noted that DTC operate to divert non-violent offenders with substance abuse problems from incarceration into supervised programmes with treatment and rigorous standards of supervision and monitoring. These diversion programs will assist with easing the overcrowding in the correctional system.
On May 7, 2013, after consideration of the views of the delegates, the Cabinet of The Bahamas authorized the establishment of a pilot DTC in The Bahamas. During the 1st Quarter of 2015, NADS convened several meetings with officials from appropriate agencies including the RBPF, Office of the Attorney General, and the Ministry of Health, to determine the eligibility requirements, rules and procedures of the DTC for The Bahamas. The first critical step was to draft a Drug Treatment Court Bill along with Regulations to be reviewed by local stakeholders. The draft was completed in the 3rd quarter of 2015 with the assistance NADS staffers, lawyers from the Law Reform and Revision Commission and the Legal Officer in the Ministry of National Security.
