Expert warns of new types of harmful drugs

JAKARTA (JP): An expert has warned teenagers, parents and law enforcers of the possibility of new types of drugs and new forms of drug abuse.

Tony Setiabudhi, a doctor at the Navy Hospital on Jl. Bendungan Hilir, Central Jakarta, said Saturday that injected amphetamine, once used as an appetite suppressant, is now used as a narcotic.

"I heard recently of a youngster being mugged in the Matraman area (East Jakarta), after he was forcefully dragged away and injected," Tony told 700 junior and high school students in South Jakarta. The people who drugged the teenager then forced him to pay for the injection, he added.

Tony was invited to address a forum on drug abuse, organized by a local branch of the Lion's Club International called Lion's Club Buana Mas, and the foundation which runs the two schools in Kebayoran Lama, Yayasan Harapan Ibu.

The first case of an amphetamine being injected was reported five years ago, he said, and apparently it has now spread.

Forceful injection of the drug was also reported in Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta, and Kebayoran Baru and Blok M in South Jakarta, Tony said.

"We must be alert, as new chemical drugs will always be created with higher stimulant affects," Tony said. After Ecstasy, also an amphetamine derivative, people will shift to new drugs, he said.

Amphetamines have been available here for decades but have been rarely produced locally over the past 15 years, he said. Besides being used for weight reduction they were also prescribed for people complaining of listlessness.

He said he feared the entrance of a drug now frequently used in the United States, given the easy access to knowledge of new trends of drug abuse which he said is available on the Internet. The drug is called hydroxy gamma butyric acid, he said.

Tony said that in the 1960s, drug abuse mainly focused on morphine and, to a lesser degree marijuana. In the 1970s users shifted to minor tranquilizers. In the 1980s, Tony said drug abuse saw combinations of hallucinogens, stimulants, antidepressants and other drugs.

"Drug abuse in the 1990s is even more varied," he said.

Meanwhile, drug abuse in forms typical of the 1970s is still found, a police officer of the Kebayoran Lama subprecinct said.

"In every student brawl we find youngsters with Mogadon, Nipam, or BK pills," said the deputy police chief of the subprecint, First Lt. U.Sutidja. He said such pills are not sold in the Kebayoran Lama area.

Vodka, other alcohol drinks, pornographic cards and sharp weapons have also been confiscated in student brawls, he said.

Tony said he has found users of marijuana as young as 11 years old. Two students in the forum admitted to having tried marijuana at least once.

"Everything, like smoking, begins with experimenting," he told the students. "But in time you will be addicted." In extreme cases a few of his patients have become virtually mad from overdoses of Ecstasy, he claimed.

"I am sure none of you would want that to happen," he said.

A parent said none of the students at the school had ever been found to possess such drugs.

"But we wish to prevent those things from happening, as we know the environment is an important factor," Endang, a mother of three, said. The Harapan Ibu school is next to a shopping complex, where milling youngsters could be potentially harmful, she said. (anr)