MORE than 60 percent of the 192,857 cases of drug abuse and addiction in the country throughout the past year involved youths.
Director-General of the National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK), Datuk Ruslin Jusoh, said the group consisted of those aged between 15 to 39.
"For the state of Terengganu, 56 percent or 6,800 out of 12,004 individuals were youths," he said at the Sua Mesra Programme with the Director-General of AADK in Kampung Gong Kemuntong in Besut, today.
He said that efforts to address the problem must be done together with various parties including parents and family institutions.
"This problem of abuse needs to be detected and addressed from home before it spreads to schools and beyond.
"If there is continuous monitoring from home and school, the problem of drug abuse among youth can be controlled," he said.
Ruslin said that the use of synthetic drugs such as Yaba pills (horse pills), syabu and ganja is in high demand from East Coast addicts and has also shown an increase of 34.4 percent.
He said that his agency is currently in the process of refining the existing rehabilitation model to be more effective and efficient.
"So far, we have used two recovery concepts, namely at the Institution, the Narcotics Addiction Rehabilitation Centre (Puspen) involving approximately 5,000 trainees.
"Recovery in the community involves more than 50,000 individuals who are involved in implementing various recovery programmes," he said. – May 10, 2025
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