The Korean government said Monday that it will help drug users willing to receive treatment and provide them with customized drug rehabilitation programs.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said it has launched a pilot project named the "Judicial-Treatment-Rehabilitation Linkage Model," which is aimed at providing appropriate treatment programs to those who want to be rehabilitated and at preventing recidivism.

The pilot project will be carried out by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. The project will be first provided to those living in Seoul and gradually expanded thereafter, according to officials.

First, when the prosecution selects participants and notifies the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, a group of drug experts and psychiatrists will propose appropriate rehabilitation programs taking participants' levels of addiction into consideration. Referring to the experts' recommendations, the prosecution can decide to suspend the indictment of the participants, according to officials.

Participants will be suspended from indictment on the condition that they complete rehabilitation programs, are monitored for drug use and receive counseling for six months.

Those participants must receive drug treatment at a treatment institution operated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, participate in rehabilitation programs at the addiction rehabilitation center run by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and at the same time, be monitored for their use of drugs by probation officers under the Ministry of Justice for six months.

The government believes that such measures can lower the recidivism rate instead of simply punishing drug addicts. This project is significant in the sense that the emphasis has moved away from only punishing drug addicts and towards helping them.

Kim Myung-ho, director of the drug safety planning department at the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, said, "We expect this pilot project to serve as the foundation for establishing a system that can successfully return drug offenders to society through continuous treatment for addition and rehabilitation."

Park Jae-eok, head of the Drug and Organized Crime Department of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, said, "If the conditions are not fulfilled, such as by committing a second offense, the suspension of prosecution will be canceled and we will prosecute the subjects again to ensure that they faithfully participate in the program."