Asia Drug Lockups Too Cruel, Ineffective to Earn U.S. Aid

The accounts call to mind 18th century insane asylums: patients confined against their will in dismal conditions, abused and subjected to experiments and unscientific treatments. Today’s inmates -- at least 350,000 -- are locked up, in China and Southeast Asia, just for using illegal drugs, or being suspected of it.

Human Rights Watch recently released a paper detailing the practice of warehousing alleged drug users in China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, adding to a stack of damning reports about these centers, which also exist in Thailand and Malaysia. In March, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and 12 other UN agencies called for closing all such institutions. It was a noteworthy statement, given that the UNODC, as well as the U.S. and other donor countries, has given many of them financial support.