Fighting the drug war from the demand side

Robert PD, Jakarta

Can any government in the world stop drug trafficking once and for all? The most logical answer is "No".

Imagine this situation: Thousands of airplanes take off and land at thousands of destinations every day; thousands of merchant ships arrive in thousands of harbors every day. Along with this, millions of cubic meters of legal and illegal cargoes move from one place to another, and amid this busy traffic narcotics, psychotropics and other addictive substances are transported across national borders to reach dealers and buyers all over the world.

Now, why is the trafficking so intense? The producers look for money, as do the dealers. And the money is legal, only the items that bring it isn't. But as long as the demand continues to soar, satisfaction of it will follow. This simply means that the huge amount of drug trafficking is caused by huge demand. The market axiom rings true here: So long as there is lucrative demand, the supply of illegal drugs will be here forever.

Governments have to work very hard in halting the supply, but not so hard in reducing the demand. And the biggest irony is that the improvement in welfare levels in the Asia-Pacific region has brought along tremendous opportunities for drug dealers to expand their market base in the region because more and more people can now afford to buy even the most expensive drugs available.

Part of the region that has now become a lucrative market for illegal drugs is Indonesia. Producers and dealers are targeting the younger generation, which, according to the National Narcotics Agency, comprises up to 40 percent of the population, or roughly 88 million people -- the third biggest market in Asia after China and India.

The country does not have an accurate compilation of data on the number of users and addicts, but to say that two million Indonesians have become regular users of drugs may be an underestimation, given that Indonesia is no longer just an end- user; it is now a producer itself especially for ecstasy, which can readily be produced with home industry equipment.

If an ecstasy factory can generate Rp 12 billion per day -- like the one police stormed into in Sentul, West Java, earlier this year -- it simply means that some entrepreneurs treat this as a lucrative source of income that they would not wish to abandon even after they have been raided. Why? Because it is the factory that has been closed down, but not the expertise or the demand for the factory's output.

Stopping the demand is what the government should have been doing all these years. With the drug business so lucrative, even if the police closed down all the factories, people would continue to produce the drugs in other places simply because the demand is so big and the yield so lucrative.

This is a business in which purchasing power is not determined by whether addicts have money in their pockets. Once they become addicts, they would do anything to get money to buy drugs -- even to the extent of stealing money from the people around them.

Addictive behavior is now spreading fast across the country. Parents are complaining about household items getting lost, not knowing that the thieves are their own children who need money to buy drugs. Housewives are grumbling about their husbands' salaries not being given in full these days, not knowing that the husbands are spending the money on drugs and women at discotheques and hotels.

Drug addiction, rather than trafficking, is what is more logical to combat. And it requires creating harmonious families and neighborhoods. It needs preemptive rather than punitive measures alone. And so it is time that knowledge about drugs be taught from elementary to junior high school and high school, as well as to parents across the country.

To begin, it is the teachers and parents who must now be equipped with sufficient knowledge about drugs, otherwise they will always be cheated by the children. If, for instance, they don't know what methamphetamines or "mets" look like, they won't be able to realize the danger when their children carry the drugs in their pockets, even into the classroom and take them in the toilet or a kiosk nearby while pretending to buy a bottle of aqua.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's SMS to millions of cell phone owners wasn't enough. Drug addiction cannot be stopped with short messages -- even a long message service wouldn't suffice.

Addicts need thorough therapy so that after kicking the habit they will not return to the same environment from which they sought refuge in drugs. Addicts need thorough guidance to fence them off from relapse. And this cannot come from SMS appeals, it must come from thorough improvements in the living environment, from households to work places and schools.

The conclusion is that drug trafficking can only be reduced effectively by reducing the demand and not just fighting the supply. The direction of the war must now be reversed: fight it from the other side. Stop the need so that satisfaction of it will not be necessary. Stop the demand so the supply won't be needed.

For sure no government in the world can stop drug trafficking once and for all. But every government can reduce the drug addiction trapping their citizens by finding solutions to the socioeconomic and other related factors that give birth to addiction.

The writer is attached to Yayasan Kasih Mulia, which runs Indonesia's biggest rehabilitation center for drug addicts, Kedhaton Parahita. He can be reached at robert2000@koreanmail.com.