Sutiyoso blames law enforcers for drugs
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Governor Sutiyoso accused law enforcers on Wednesday of turning a blind eye to drug dealing in the capital, leading to rampant drug abuse, especially among the young.
"It does not make sense that law enforcers say they cannot arrest the drug dealers, but some of these dealers are operating right in front of their very noses," Sutiyoso said on the sidelines of a workshop on preventing drug abuse in major cities in the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) region. The workshop was held at the Borobudur Hotel in Central Jakarta.
Sutiyoso cast doubt over just how serious law enforcers were about dealing with this problem.
"I already proved just how widespread drug dealing is here by arresting a suspected dealer in a discotheque," he said, recalling a 2001 incident at a bar in the Lokasari entertainment complex.
There are an estimated 10,000 injecting drug users (IDUs) in Jakarta. These drug users face higher risks of contracting HIV by sharing needles. An official report showed that as of Dec. 31, the capital had the highest recorded number of people living with HIV/AIDS at 2,505, or 45 percent of the officially reported 5,540 cases of HIV/AIDS nationwide.
Sutiyoso emphasized that law enforcers, especially the police, played a vital role in fighting the sale and use of drugs.
"The situation is very alarming. We all must make drug dealers our common enemy. Otherwise, we will see the loss of the next generation because drug dealers target teenagers and children," he said.
Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo, who also chairs the Jakarta Narcotics Board, floated the idea of establishing a network among major cities in ASEAN to improve cooperation in drug prevention and eradication programs.
"We are in dire need of a strong network among major cities in the region in the war against well-organized international drug trafficking rings," Fauzi said.
Fauzi also underlined that the effort to combat drug trafficking had to involve the public, or it would be doomed to failure.
"The most effective and best way to eradicate drug trafficking is to establish a community-based system that reaches down to the lowest unit in the community, which is the neighborhood unit," he said.
Because different communities have different characteristics and needs, the system would have to be adapted to the different communities, he said.
"There are some possible methods we could adopt. But we have to be careful because the use of some methods are still sensitive in our community," he said.
He cited the example of using methadone as a substitute for heroin addicts and needle-exchange programs.