Youth antidrug safari tours main islands

JAKARTA (JP): Anti-drug campaigners will launch a "safari for youths" next month in an attempt to increase younger people's awareness of the dangers of drug abuse.

Putera Astaman, chairman of the Bersama anti-drug non- governmental organization (NGO), told the press here yesterday that the safari will feature a number of high-achieving students and activists. They will meet and give lectures to youths in eight cities on drugs and other substance abuses.

The drive, starting July 29 and ending August 15, is part of a set of activities held in connection with the 1990 - 2000 international anti-drug decade launched by the United Nations.

The UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali will give his message on the occasion on the International Day Against Drugs Abuse and Illicit Trafficking which falls on June 26.

The eight cities where the safari will be held include Bandung, Yogyakarta, Semarang, Surabaya, Denpasar, and Mataram.

Bersama, set up in 1978, is the only organization that the government appointed to coordinate all anti-drug abuses campaigners in Indonesia.

It is a member of the International Federation of Non- Governmental Organizations which has link to the UN's World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization as well as the UNESCO.

President Soeharto is the patron of Bersama, while several cabinet ministers are among its advisory board members.

Putera yesterday called for greater efforts of the public to fight drug abuse. He pointed out that the rate of crime increases rapidly and occurs in many places.

Among the drug abusers are not only young people, but also businessmen and ordinary people such as bus drivers, he said.

He gave as an example the Kramat Djati, a bus accident in Bogor in March which killed 31 people. Police investigators found out that the bus driver took drugs before driving.

The latest report of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) placed Indonesia on the same level of drug abuse as developed countries such as the United Kingdom, Japan, Mexico.

The Indonesia's inter-departmental agency for drugs control, known by its Indonesian acronym Bakorlak Inpres, admitted there has been an increase in the abuse rate.

The agency's official M.D. Tanjung said that for the past five years the Indonesian police and the Attorney General's Office have handled 12,000 cases related to the abuse of drugs including Ecstasy. Tanjung, however, believed that the actual figure could be ten times higher. (01)