Newsbrief:
Asian
Drug
Abolition
Mania
Spreading
--
Malaysia
Calls
for
"Total
War,"
Drug
Free
Southeast
Asia
by
2015
1/31/03
Last week, DRCNet reported on moves in Thailand and The Philippines to make the two Southeast Asian nations "drug free." Thailand will achieve that status on April 30, officials declared; The Philippines are willing to wait two-and-a-half years (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/273.html#southeastasia). Now, neighboring Malaysia, where any drug trafficking conviction brings the death penalty, has decided to get tough. According to a January 22 report from the Malaysia Star, that country's National Drugs Council will create an atmosphere of "total war" against drugs, which will free the country and the region from the "drug menace" by 2015. Efforts to combat drug abuse had not been "entirely successful, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah told a press conference after a three hour meeting of Malaysian anti-drug officials in Kuala Lumpur January 21. "The drug menace covering the network of addiction, trafficking, smuggling and manufacturing continues to be a main threat to stability," he said. "Therefore, a new approach has to be taken immediately before this gets out of control to ensure that Malaysia and ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations] are free of drugs by 2015." Malaysia has an estimated 220,000 heroin addicts, according to government figures. But while heroin use has traditionally been a habit of the lower class and Indonesian immigrant workers, the Malaysian press in recent months has quoted government officials as growing increasingly concerned about the spread of cannabis, ecstasy (MDMA), and amphetamine use among the middle class and the children of the elite. To fight rising levels of drug use, said Deputy Home Minister Datuk Zainal Abidin Zin, the council officially declared 2003 the "Year of Total War Against Drugs" and announced plans to recruit a million students to be "friends of PEMADAM [the drug prevention agency]." The agency will also allow drug users at "rehabilitation centers" to work in the private sector, he said. Malaysia currently has some 10,000 people in 28 centers -- 70% of whom will relapse, according to official figures. Other measures announced to eradicate drugs by 2015 include an electronic media blitz, instilling an "anti-drug" culture in a country where officials complained last year that the population was "less than enthusiastic" about the cause, activating all government agencies and non-governmental organizations to "enhance discipline and morality" among the public, and, of course, tougher enforcement directed at traffickers, manufacturers, and users. Also, Zin warned, cigarettes could be a gateway drug.
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