Minister Ananda Wijepala told a rally in Nikaweratiya that 574,000 people linked to drug activity have been arrested over the past two years. Any Government has a duty to go after traffickers who poison communities, and the public wants to see that effort. But an arrest count measures activity, not results. The question that matters is the one the figure leaves unanswered: what happens to these people next?
The honest answer is uncomfortable. Early this year, more than 27,000 of roughly 37,000 inmates were remand prisoners, who had been convicted of nothing. By mid-2026 the prison population had reached a record 42,034, in a system built for a fraction of that number. Prison officials and rights groups say around two thirds of inmates are there over drug offences, and the Minister himself has put the share of addicts at about 70 per cent. Many were swept up in dragnet operations that caught users far more readily than kingpins.
Delays make matters worse. Suspects have waited between 18 months and two years in remand for forensic reports, partly because the Government Analyst’s Department has 118 vacancies. A person arrested for possessing a small quantity can lose a year or more of liberty before anyone confirms what the substance was. That is not law and order. It is administrative failure with human consequences.
The riots at Negombo Prison and elsewhere earlier this year should have been treated as a final warning. Overcrowding breeds tension, and tension breeds violence. Putting a first-time user beside hardened criminals does not frighten him straight. It introduces him to the networks he is supposed to be kept away from, and it is well known that drugs still circulate inside our prisons, often with the help of corrupt officers. We are spending public money to manufacture better-connected offenders.
To its credit, the Government appears to understand this. The Minister has spoken of moving from imprisoning addicts to rehabilitating them. District rehabilitation centres are planned, 250 counsellors have been trained to assess users, and treatment options range from short courses to home-based recovery. Parliament’s committee has discussed referring minor offenders with addiction to treatment after a medical assessment, and the Justice Minister has promised an amendment restoring High Court bail in certain drug cases. These are sensible ideas, and they are overdue.
Yet intentions are not outcomes. Officials have talked for years about charging suspected addicts under Section 78 rather than Section 54 of the Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Act, so that they can be diverted from remand to treatment. Reports as far back as 2020 mentioned the discussions. Six years on, the prisons are fuller than ever. Reform that lives only in committee papers helps nobody.
There is a deeper question that deserves honest scrutiny: does our rehabilitation actually work? The public has seen announcements of centres and counsellors, but very little data. How many people complete a programme? How many remain drug-free after one year, or five? How many return to the courts? Are the facilities medically led, or are they custodial in all but name? Compulsory, discipline-heavy models have drawn criticism the world over for poor results and for rights abuses. Before pouring more money into new centres, the Government should commission an independent audit of the existing ones and publish the findings, flattering or not.
Other countries offer lessons worth studying. Portugal decriminalised personal possession in 2001 and sends users before panels that steer them towards treatment, with a marked fall in addiction-related harm. Switzerland pioneered medically supervised treatment for heroin dependence. Opioid substitution therapy, drug courts that supervise treatment instead of jail, and community-based counselling are all used in various forms around the world. None is perfect, and none can be copied wholesale into Sri Lankan conditions. But all start from the same principle: addiction is first a health problem, and a criminal one only when it feeds trafficking.
That principle must not blur the line between users and dealers. Traffickers should face the full force of the law, and the justice system needs the staff, laboratories and courts to prosecute them swiftly. Sorting the two groups quickly and fairly is the heart of the reform, and it demands faster forensic reports, workable bail rules and sentencing that offers alternatives to custody.
The Government has set the right direction. Now it must prove, with numbers that it is arriving. The test of this campaign will not be how many people were arrested, but how many are well again and how many cells stand empty.