THE drug scourge in Malaysia has spread even to the remote areas of Sarawak, with the police uncovering cases of drug woes in almost every longhouse in the central region of the state.
Temenggong Stanley Granong, the paramount chief of the Iban communities in the Sibu region, said the latest figures from the police show there are drug addiction and abuse cases in every longhouse.
"I have to admit that the urban drug problem has spread into the remote regions… The latest figures I got from the police show that even the faraway longhouses are seeing drug woes,” he said.
"I am calling on parents and community elders to help detect cases of drug abuse within their reach.
"Do not hide such cases," he said when visiting Rumah Henry in Ulu Teru, near Miri, recently.
It was reported on November 12 that some parents and community chiefs in Sarawak are "hiding" drug-addicted children in their homes and preventing enforcement authorities from reaching them.
The guardians of such children wish to protect their reputations and avoid punishment from the authorities, without realising that they are doing more harm than good, said Sarawak Deputy Minister for Education, Innovation and Talent Development, Datuk Francis Harden Hollis.
Speaking at a community gathering in Sri Aman town in southern Sarawak, he had said that the Malaysian Anti-Dugs Agency had come across numerous instances of drug problems concealed in village homes and longhouses.
"From the information I gathered from the agency, there are parents who knowingly refuse to refer their children who are on drugs to the authorities.
"There are also kampung heads and community chiefs who conceal such cases.”
Harden said anti-drug agency officials are not out to punish but to help those with drug problems.
"The only way to help your kids and youth afflicted with drug woes is to report them to the authorities, who will get the Malaysian Anti-Dadah Agency to intervene fast and treat the afflicted ones.
"Parents and community chiefs must have the courage to report drug problems in their midst as that is the only way to help the afflicted."
It was recently reported that drug-related problems in Sarawak had reached alarming levels, judging from the volume of drugs seized and the number of people arrested for drug-trafficking, drug possession and drug-addiction in the state.
In the first nine months of this year, Sarawak policeuncovered and seized RM128.8 million worth of drugs, more than a 12-fold increase from the RM9.3 million worth of drugs that was confiscated during the same period last year.
This year, as of September, Sarawak police have arrested 7,557 people for drug offences compared to 6,335 offenders nabbed during the same period last year.
In early October, police in Miri arrested a 60-year-old mother and her 39-year-old son at a squatter resettlement scheme in the outskirts of the city for allegedly turning their home into a drug-trafficking base. – The Vibes, November 22, 2023
