KUCHING: A total of 76 drug addicts were admitted to the Cure and Care Rehabilitation Centre (CCRC), Kuching, within the period of January until 5th June this year.
This was revealed by the Director of Kuching Drug Rehabilitation Centre (PUSPEN) Iskandar Turkee during a visit by Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Datuk Fatimah Abdullah to the CCRC, yesterday.
According to Iskandar, from the figure, 69 of them volunteered to enter the centre which falls into Section 8 (3)(A), while the rest seven were through arrests under the Section 6 (1)(A).
“70 of them were addicted to cocaine, one was an Amphetamine addict, three were addicted to Cannabis (ganja) while was addicted to Ketamine and one was a Nospen addict.
“50 of them were unemployed, 24 were labourers whereas two were from private sector employment. Meanwhile, for the statistics on age, 43 of them are aged between 22 and 29 years old, 19 are aged between 30 and 39 while 11 are aged below 21 years old while two are aged between 40 and 49 years old, and one is aged between 50 and 59 years old.
“Even though the figure is increasing compared to last year’s, it does not show that the number of drug addicts is increasing; it shows that they are open for treatment and wanting to improve their life for the better,” said Iskandar.
Meanwhile, Fatimah said, the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) of Sarawak Contingent statistics stated that since 2011 until April 2017, a total of 32,985 arrests were made involving drug offences.
“To strengthen the efforts of combating the drug issues, recently a Workshop of Coordination and Resolution on Drug Issue was held from fourth until seventh of May 2017 in Lawas, Limbang, which involved various agencies namely Home Ministry, Bukit Aman RMP, Sarawak Contingent RMP, and Malaysian National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK),
“The workshop managed to establish an Intervention Integrated Action Plan which is in the form of law enforcement and non-law enforcement,” she disclosed.
She added that, through research from Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation of the year 2016, 60 per cent of social misconducts happening in the country were related to drugs.
Also present were Chairman of Kuching Puspen Board of Directors, Dato’ Sri Abang Khalid Tan Sri Datuk Amar Abang Marzuki, and Director of AADK Sarawak, Wan Madihi Wan Salleh.
