Guizhou Makes Significant Achievements in Community-based Drug Treatment & Rehabilitation Pattern
The way to facilitate “Sunshine Project” under challenges (5)

Extension specialists propose to make the “Sunshine Project” a national strategy to benefit more drug sufferers with policy support and legitimate guarantee

In spite of phased accomplishment in the “Sunshine Project”, drug control remains a task torturous, complicated, repeated and longstanding, and there are a range of difficulties and problems to be addressed in the construction of the project itself.

Guizhou held a Community-based Drug Treatment & Rehabilitation – “Sunshine Project” Seminar on September 1. In the discussion, specialists and scholars from Tsinghua University, Peking University, China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong, China University of Political Science and Law and other institutions successively put forward their proposals for advancing the “Sunshine Project”. Professor Yu An from Tsinghua University said Guizhou has made a great overstep in traditional administrative narcotics control conducts by having the government actively guide the relief measures for promoting the employment rate of the rehabilitated, opening a new way for drugs control. Deputy Director of China Center for Overseas Social and Philosophical Theories, Lai Hairong gave a higher recognition to the “Sunshine Project” that it has embodied the progress of human rights in our legal system construction and fully reflected the advanced philosophy of human rights in modern times.

According to professor Yu, there are some governments choose to coordinate with social entities to achieve public interest objectives. Guizhou tends to seek market-based enterprises as partners, in which cooperation, the enterprises remain being corporations pursuing maximized profit while assume more social responsibilities under the guidance of the government. Legally, it is a type of market-oriented commercial business model based on public interest contract. That is the unique feature to differ the “Sunshine Project” from other approaches adopted by other countries.

He said “what we should take into account now is how the government to position itself in this coordination to better balance sunshine enterprises’ social responsibilities and their profit patterns, as it is crucial to the sustainable development of the sunshine model.”
Professor Deng Guosheng from School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, raised a question that “is it the best way to advance the project totally relying on leadership’s concern and government’s force?” He said it is truly important for the government’s propelling at the primary stage, however, the duty is recommended to be transferred onto the provincial Anti-drug Foundation in the future which is supposed to absorb social resources and subsidize engaged social enterprises.

Deputy Director Lai considered that in view of a small coverage of this project at present, efforts should be made to raise the awareness of the whole society to participate in this campaign, while enterprises among all the sectors are the key for the all-round extending of the Sunshine Project. He advised to attract social businesses, new type of public enterprises and commonweal organizations to get involved together with traditional establishments, with the purpose of enlarging the power and coverage of the project far and away.