Indonesian youths fueling drug craze

Indonesian youths fueling drug craze

Joanne Collins, Reuters, Jakarta

An ecstasy rush mixed with pulsating techno-beats and piercing strobe lights at a Jakarta night club is an addictive combination for 23-year-old Audi.

"I don't know how to describe it. The hair on the back of your neck stands up -- it's like 'wow'," said the Chinese Indonesian, opening his eyes wide open as if to simulate the drug's effect.

A smoky den of sweaty limbs and hedonistic excess, Audi's favorite nightspot is typical of the clubs Jakarta's central Kota district is famed for, and where ecstasy is king.

Finding the drug in any of its various colors or shapes is easy once you get to know the right people, says Audi, part of a mushrooming drug culture in the world's most populous Muslim country.

"I just walk up to them and say: 'do you have any stuff?' Sometimes you don't even have to ask. Someone might just flick your arm and say 'you want it'?"

But the spiky-haired night clubber says the quality of the stimulant, which foreign narcotics experts say is now manufactured in and imported to Indonesia in roughly equal quantities, can be unpredictable.

He says some of the pills have too much speed which can lead to a night of teeth grinding, while others drain your legs of energy and leave you dancing in your seat.

For anywhere between Rp 50,000-Rp 100,000 (US$5.63-$11.26) per pill, inex, Indonesian slang for the drug, is easily affordable for young professionals or those from affluent families.

Audi's drug habit is supported by his parents who regularly dish out "pocket money", sometimes up to Rp 1 million a month -- more than twice the average minimum wage.

The Australian university graduate says jobs are extremely hard to find in Indonesia five years after the Asian financial crisis pummeled the economy, and unemployment is partly the reason he seeks out the euphoric world of drugs.

"When I'm high, I think I can fly, that I'm going to be a rich man. There are so many fantasies in my mind."

His drug habit is not limited to ecstasy. He dabbles in heroin and regularly uses shabu-shabu, a crystal methamphetamine also known as "ice".

Comprehensive statistics on drug and narcotics abuse in Indonesia are difficult to find, but David Gordon, who runs a drug rehabilitation center in the leafy city of Bogor, 60 km (40 miles) south of Jakarta, says the extent of the problem is self- evident.

"To think you can buy drugs at any high school gives you an idea of how saturated it is in the country," Gordon said.

"In the late eighties and at the beginning of the nineties you had to know somebody. Today you just walk across the street from any school into a warung (food stall) and bring drugs into the school," he said.

Indonesia's national narcotics board (BNN) says drug abuse exploded in the 1990s. Data from hospitals and treatment centers showed a 175 percent increase in cases between 1997 and 1999.

BNN says ecstasy is the country's most widely abused psychotropic drug -- despite use of it being a crime that carries a maximum penalty of three years in jail. Traffickers of the drug face the death penalty.

More than a dozen people are on death row in Indonesia for drug offenses, including a man who ran an ecstasy factory on the outskirts of Jakarta capable of pumping out 450,000 tablets a day.

"This case has been hailed as one of the most successful in the world because it was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, clandestine laboratories in the world," said senior BNN official Brigadier-General Jeanne Mandagi.

"His was the best quality because he used a Dutch chemist, who had a very good recipe for making ecstasy," she added.

The first and last time someone was executed for drug offenses in Indonesia was the 1950s.

Mandagi said President Megawati Sukarnoputri's government -- which created BNN less than a year ago -- was firmly committed to fighting drug abuse.

BNN has very broad powers, co-ordinating around 25 government agencies related to drugs in the field of prevention, law enforcement and rehabilitation, and is chaired by the national police chief.

Megawati has also launched a number of anti-drug campaigns and her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) last year sought to take a moral lead in combating drug abuse by pledging to expel members found using banned substances.

She is a strong supporter of the death penalty -- carried out by firing squad -- and often warns of the dangers of drug abuse in her speeches.

"She has been involved in drug prevention since she was young. She was a leader of neighborhood group for prevention and was a volunteer caring for those who have been in rehabilitation," Mandagi said.

While Indonesian police are making more breakthroughs in the drug trade and courts are handing down increasingly tougher sentences, foreign narcotics experts say the government is failing to tackle a major root cause of the problem.

"The military and the police are involved at every level. You only have to look at the incident in Binjai last year," said one expert.

He was referring to a clash between Indonesian police and soldiers at Binjai on Sumatra island, around 1,500 km (900 miles) northwest of Jakarta.

Around 100 soldiers armed with rifles and grenades attacked a police post in the town, killing at least four police officers -- an incident local media said was sparked by police arresting a soldier for suspected drug offenses.

Mandagi, Indonesia's first female police and armed forces general, says the problem within the security forces is more one of drug abuse.

"It is not true to say that they control the industry, it is more that they offer backing or protection," she said.