Malaysian cops step up fight against drugs

[hokkien]

Monday, Jul 01, 2013
KUALA LUMPUR - Police are stepping up efforts to fight the drugs scourge - this time by relooking their internal policy like doing away with its performance key index (KPI) when dealing with drug abusers.

This means not prioritising the number of users arrested but nabbing the suppliers.

Bukit Aman narcotics investigation department deputy director Senior Asst Comm Jamaludin Kudin revealed that 71,787 drug-related arrests were made so far this year but lamented that these arrests mostly comprised minor offences.

Of the number, 66,417 cases involved drug users while 5,370 were the arrest of drug suppliers. Around 4,000 people arrested monthly from January to May this year were for drug offences.

"Seventy per cent of arrests are the users and that is not effective in preventing the problem. We need to catch the big fish," said SAC Jamaludin.

"The first thing we think about is our KPI, so we arrest so many addicts for KPI but we have to realise that this doesn't put an end to it.

"We arrest and charge them but they will turn up again in a few months.

"KPI is totally useless, so my director has already voiced intentions to reduce it. The reality is the suppliers," said SAC Jamaludin during a panel on drug policy and public health by the Global Commission on Drug Policy and International AIDS Society here yesterday.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri said Malaysia is undertaking drug policy reforms as part of an effort to decriminalise use of drugs and this included reviewing provisions in the Drug Dependants (Treatment and Rehabilitation Act) which touched on urine tests and 14 days' detention for suspected drug dependants.