Saakashvili Orders Hair Drug Test for Officials

President Saakashvili has ordered the Healthcare Ministry to test hair samples of public officials for evidence of drug misuse.

“Next week I will be the first to provide my hair samples,” Saakashvili told Healthcare Minister, Alexandre Kvitashvili and a lawmaker from the parliamentary minority, Dimitri Lortkipanidze.

The latter has proposed such tests for public officials, which was picked up by the President calling it: “One of the best ideas I have heard recently.”

Although there have been several cases of drug testing among public officials, MP Lortkipanidze offered on March 5 to conduct hair drug tests, instead of urinalysis, saying that analysis of hair samples is more effective, which can provide a drug history of over a 90-day period.

“The government should listen attentively to all those reasonable initiatives, which will be coming from the political groups. The reaction [of the government] should not be rejection, [proposals] should be accepted if considered necessary for the country,” Saakashvili said.

He said the entire “public sector – and it is about 100 thousand persons” should undergo these tests.
 
He also said there were 6,000 inmates in the Georgian prisons serving sentences for illegal drug trade. He called drug misuse “a catastrophic” problem for Georgia.

“In recent years the level of drug misuse has stabilized, but we managed to do it through taking draconian measures… Although I understand that repressive methods can not resolve this problem,” he said and added that environment should be created, wherein drug misuse would be socially unacceptable.

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)