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Published : 08 Oct 2018, 03:55 PM
The approval came at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday.
After the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Md Shafiul Alam told the media that yaba, shisha bars and dope testing are new additions to the law.
Now all types of narcotic substances are covered by the law, he said.
The draft has proposed jail terms between one and five years and fines for offences relating to less than 5 grams of methamphetamine.
The maximum penalty will be death in case of over 5 grams of methamphetamine. The punishments for such offences also include life term imprisonment and fines in the draft law.
The existing anti-narcotics law stipulates death sentence as maximum penalty for offences related to heroin, cocaine and drugs made from coca, morphine, tetrahydrocannabinol, opium, cannabis resin, and methadone.
Amphetamine drugs are under category ‘B’ in the law and offences related to such drugs may hand the convict jail term between six months and three years for up to 5gm amphetamine. The punishment for producing, trafficking or distributing over 5gm amphetamine is between five years and 15 years in jail.
Yaba has been under this category.
Each yaba tablet contains around or less than 0.1gm amphetamine, according to the Department of Narcotics Control.
It means 50 to 55 yaba tablets contain 5gm amphetamine.
The punishments for offences related to 55 yaba tablets and hundreds of thousands of the pills are same - maximum 15 years in jail - in the existing law.
The new law has now included death penalty, another desperate effort of the government to control the drugs menace.
The cabinet secretary said the existing anti-narcotics law was passed in 1990 and amended once. The new law has been drafted in light of international conventions like the Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs of 1961, the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971 and the UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988.
Control-delivery provisions have also been included in the draft following instructions of the International Narcotics Control Board.
The definition of beer has been updated, according to Shafiul.
He said running a bar without licence will lead to Tk 100,000 in fines.
The draft law defines shisha as a composition of different herbal products, more than 0.2 percent nicotine taken through SS channel.
Dope tests can be conducted on suspected drug addicts following the rules and if a suspect tests positive, he or she will be sentenced to jail between six months and five years.
The maximum punishment for financing or harbouring drug trade or backing the offences mentioned in the law is also death, according to the draft.
