Police war on drugs taken to grassroots

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The National Police force will shift its efforts from mere discussions and seminars to more concrete measures in fighting drug abuse, as the number of young drug abusers continues to rise nationwide.

National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on Monday that he had ordered his officers to use the funds allocated for combating drug abuse to promote prevention straight to households, to investigate drug cases, complete unresolved cases and to conduct rehabilitation for those who are addicted.

"Instead of holding costly seminars or ceremonial events, we will use the funds to finance activities that directly affect the potential users or drug victims," Da'i said during a seminar at the Hilton Hotel in Central Jakarta.

The state allocated Rp 105 billion for the fight against drug abuse nationwide this year, down from Rp 150 billion in 2003.

Da'i vowed to capture as many drug dealers as possible, while trying to enable people at the neighborhood level to identify various kinds of drugs being circulated in their neigborhood.

"After they can identify various drugs, then they can report to the police once they find such substances in their neighborhood," he said.

Da'i said that the police need full cooperation from the community to be able to affectively combat drug abuse across the country. He added that the personal approach to make people aware of the presence and danger of drugs and their dealers in their surroundings would be more effective than the "all these seminars and ceremonial events" conducted by police so far.

"We accept the criticism ... we realize that thousands of people attending a ceremony won't bother to listen to explanations about our efforts to curb drug abuse," he said.

On Sunday, President Megawati Soekarnoputri inagaurated a launching ceremony for a nationwide fight against drug abuse. The event was organized by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) and nearly 17,000 people attended.

Cynics have said that the tougher measures against drug dealers such as the execution of Indian national Prasadh Chaubey, and the rejection of clemency for other convicted drug traffickers, were part of efforts by Megawati to win more support ahead of the Sept. 20 runoff of the presidential election.

Two Thai nationals, who are among those on death row for drug trafficking, are scheduled to go before the firing squad on Sept. 19, after their clemency requests were denied by Megawati.

Other activists have said that the government's moves had failed to curb drug abuse. They cite the fact that since BNN was established in the mid 1990's, the number of drug abusers in the country had rocketed to alarming levels.

According to the latest survey on teenagers in 26 provinces by BNN and the University of Indonesia, 3.9 percent of the total of 13,100 respondents admitted abusing drugs.

Da'i also warned that according to the United Nations over 1 percent of the country's over 220 million people were involved in drugs, as a dealer or a user.

"We are no longer merely a point of transit, but a market for the international drug syndicates. We are also now the producers as well as users. According to the UN, Indonesia has one of the highest levels of psychotropic subtance abuse," he said.

He explained that according to a recent survey, drug users said they prefered to be shot dead rather than have their supply of drugs stopped when they need a "high".

"They are not afraid of being shot. This shows that we need to prevent them from using drugs ... rather than focusing on curing them," Da'i said.

Government officials have, however, argued that the death sentence for convicted drug abusers is necessary to deter more drug abusers or potential traffickers from commiting the crimes.