Kuala Lumpur, more and more young people slaves to methamphetamines
An enquiry by the New Straits Times newspaper disputes the government's optimistic figures: there are said to be one million drug addicts with an explosion in consumption among teenagers. Liquids for electronic cigarettes, sold at ever lower prices, are also among the spreading forms.
Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews) - The phenomenon of drug addiction is becoming increasingly serious in Malaysia. This is revealed in a series of articles by the Malaysian daily New Straits Times, which highlights the poor results of local policies in tackling the phenomenon, which have stopped at the announcement of the Malaysian government's intention - expressed in 2019 - to follow the path of decriminalisation. In the meantime, however, the situation is getting worse, especially among young people.
Theoretically, the official data from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (Dosm), which are stuck at 2021, would show a decline in the problem. According to this picture, the typical Malaysian drug addict would be a Bumiputera male over the age of 40, with a high school education who holds full-time employment and prefers methamphetamines.
But the picture emerging from other observers describes, on the contrary, an increase in the phenomenon that actually involves the very young. The New Straits Times states that drug addicts in Malaysia would be almost one million, far more than the 137,176 officially registered with the National Anti-Drug Agency (Nada).
After all, even the Nada statistics show an 11% increase in drug addicts since 2022. And the director of this agency himself, Sutekno Ahman Belon, attributes the drop in numbers recorded by the Department of Statistics to the restricted movement of people in Malaysia due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which simply prevented many drug addicts from registering.
Many Malaysian teenagers fall into the web of drug addiction. The New Straits Times interviewed teenagers who told of being pushed by peers to use methamphetamine recreationally, which eventually led to addiction. Under the control of their dealers, they find that they need higher and higher doses of the drug to achieve the same high and start stealing to pay for their habit. These teenagers also claim that smoking, drinking and sniffing glue are common among their peers.
The newspaper even reported the case of a seven-year-old boy addicted to 'syabu', as methamphetamine is called in East Asia. Worse still, many female drug addicts who become pregnant pass their addiction on to their children through breast milk. In an editorial, the New Straits Times laments how the government's efforts to combat drugs are 'largely after-the-fact' and fail to address the root causes of the problem, estimating that 5% of young Malaysians are actually drug addicts.
The investigation also mentions liquids for electronic cigarettes with hallucinogenic substances being sold for as little as 100 Ringgit (about EUR 20) per bottle, so that teenagers can scrape together the money to buy them. Some dealers would even sell 5-10 drops of this liquid for as little as 10 Ringgit (just EUR 2).
Meanwhile, Amnesty Malaysia has called for clemency for Hoo Yew Wah, a young Malaysian man convicted of methamphetamine possession: he was abused in police custody and has been waiting on death row since 2011. Just a few days ago, Malaysia took a first step towards the abolition of the death penalty.
.png)
12/05/2023 16:33
23/11/2022 17:03
12/09/2017 16:49
