Executives use Ecstasy

YOGYAKARTA: Detective chief Brig. Gen. GPH Rusdihardjo said yesterday that 78 percent of Ecstasy users are young business executives.

People from lower income brackets and the less educated constitute only 12 percent of the drug users, he told journalists.

"What is appalling is that more and more teenagers and children in major cities are consuming the pills," he said. "This is really a saddening fact."

In neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, most of the users are from the middle and lower levels of society, according to Rusdihardjo. In the U.S. most users are blacks, he said.

"In Indonesia, ecstasy poses a threat to the nation's future because many of the educated young are addicted," he said. He added that the police have found it difficult to catch Ecstasy "godfathers", most of whom are powerful and connected. He did not elaborate. (har/pan)