KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 ― Malaysia’s zero tolerance drug policy is better than the US approach that has failed to curb addiction by allowing "soft” narcotics like marijuana, Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said.

The deputy home minister also shot down calls for Puspen centres to change their methods of treating drug addicts, saying that substituting drugs like heroin with methadone does not solve the problem of addiction.

"In terms of policy, there is a major difference because we have a zero tolerance policy, whereas in the West or US, they can't control the drug problem anymore so they decide to liberalise it,” he told Malay Mail Online when contacted.

"It is still drug addiction even if you move from heroin to methadone, when the whole idea is to get them to go cold turkey.

"30,000 people die of drug addiction in US. How many die in Malaysia? Which is more effective?” the Pulai MP said.

According to US news site Mic, more than half of the US have legislations allowing the consumption of cannabis for recreational and/or medical purposes. On Election Day last month, eight US states reportedly approved laws to decriminalise the possession of small amounts of marijuana or to expand medical marijuana usage.

Jazlan claimed that a soft approach to drugs will only encourage the eventual use of hard drugs later among users.

"The theory is that you start with the softer ones, then you move to the harder ones. There is an epidemic of people in the US who abuse painkillers then move up to heroin, so this approach does not work,” he said.

Nur Jazlan said substituting hard drugs in rehabilitation centres will only benefit pharmaceutical companies who stand to make a huge profit in selling alternatives like methadone.

"No, we have to maintain a cold turkey approach (in Puspen detention centres) because this is our policy. Substituting drugs only favours drug companies,” he said.

Nur Jazlan's remarks come after a research study by Universiti Malaya Dean of Medicine Datuk Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman, Yale University School of Medicine, University of Florida College of Medicine and the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, which revealed that drug users at Puspen detention centres in Malaysia are much more likely to relapse than those who seek help at the voluntary Cure and Care Centres.

The study published in The Lancet Global Health last week, which surveyed 89 people from Puspen centres and 95 from Cure and Care Centres in the Klang Valley between 2012 and 2014, showed that half of those released from Puspen relapsed within 31 days, while those who were released from Cure and Care Centres relapsed after 352 days, a tenfold increase.

After one year, only 10 per cent of those in Puspen were drug free compared to 50 per cent from the Cure and Care Centres.

Both Puspen detention centres and Cure and Care centres are run by the National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK).

"The sample size for the study is too small, so I don't know how they can see we have not been successful when the sample size is small,” Nur Jazlan said in response to the study.

Researchers said the findings "strongly support” international calls for such detention centres around the world to cease operations in light of their ineffectiveness in treating drug dependence.

The study also called for a shift of drug policies to be more health-based and rights-based, instead of being centred around criminalisation and punishment.