Parents told to help kids say no to drugs

JAKARTA (JP): Parents, don't neglect to look out for your teenage kids, otherwise, your beloved children may have to face a dangerous challenge -- drugs -- alone.

This call came from a social worker helping people, many of them alarmingly young, to get over their drug addictions.

Teenagers are most vulnerable to becoming addicted to drugs, said David D. Gordon, founder of the Harapan Permata Hati Kita Foundation in Bogor.

The main activities of the foundation are caring for and rehabilitating drug addicts.

"Most victims at drug recovery centers here are teenagers," Gordon said at a discussion on drug cure and prevention at Soebono Mantovani Islamic boarding school in South Jakarta on Thursday.

When children are in the age range of 14 to 17, they begin to have wider social contacts than they did in elementary school, he said.

"They are starting to go to malls, watching girls and trying all the fun things they can during their junior high school years, as they have more freedom from their parents," Gordon explained.

Thus, parents and all parts of the community need to address the problem, he said.

"Parents, government officers, non-governmental organizations and teachers should contribute to solving the problem."

Gordon suggested that more discussions and meetings on drugs could be held to give people addicted to drugs the chance to share their experiences and problems.

Such events also become a means of education for the public, especially teenagers, on the dangers of drugs, he said.

Gordon also said that the role of the media was important in making young people realize that drug use can have a very destructive effect on their lives.

"But the media should make news reports that can educate people, rather than simply grabbing people's attention by dramatizing facts," he said.

Bella Parama and Yoga Pratama, two young people currently undergoing treatment for their drug addictions at Permata Hati Kita Foundation, shared their experiences with a group of students, teachers and local government officials at the boarding school.

Bella, 23, said it was cigarettes that later led him to consume alcohol, heroin and putauw (low-grade heroin).

"I consumed the drugs to demonstrate that I was more courageous than my other friends," he said.

Bella stressed that social contacts often are an important factor in leading people to start using drugs.

"For example, I got the drugs from my friends. I had spent much of my spare time with them rather than with my family," he added.

Yoga told a similar story.

He said he had lied to his mother and sold his belongings to get money to buy putauw.

Nancy, the mother of another young drug addict, told the audience that she would do her best to save her son's life after realizing that he was heavily addicted by putauw.

"After I discovered that it is very difficult and expensive to cure people of their drug addictions, I realized that the most valuable thing in the world is my children," she said. (asa)