KUCHING: This year up until August, Kuching District has seen 30 students testing positive for drugs, the highest number of such cases compared to other districts in Sarawak.
Munawwar Ismail, drug prevention special officer from the State Education Department’s (JPNS) Drug Prevention Education Unit, said this was followed by Bintulu with 13 cases and Serian, with eight cases.
“Many factors can contribute to the higher number of cases in Kuching – there are many schools there and the area is vast,” he explained at a press conference on the One Stop Committee’s (OSC) monthly report on addressing drug and substance abuse (MIDS) for the month of August at the Baitul Makmur Building here on Friday (Sept 25).
He pointed out that schools had been closed during the Covid-19 pandemic, so the urine drug screening process that JPNS usually carried out with National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK) Sarawak and the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) was affected. He said these tests would be resumed this week.
Nevertheless, he said that urine tests were done in February and March, with 1,141 students (1,080 males and 61 females) from Forms 1 to 6 screened. From these, he disclosed that 79 students were found to be positive for drug use.
Munawwar said that most of these students used methamphetamine, adding that this was possibly due to the price and that it was easier for these students to gain access to this type of drug here.
“With regard to students’ involvement in drugs, there are usually not many cases among students in Forms 1 and 2.
“It mostly starts from Forms 3 to 5, whereby many students in this age group would be more involved in drugs – based on statistics for Sarawak over the last three years.”
He said that the 79 students who tested positive for drugs would undergo counselling sessions in their respective schools and with AADK Sarawak, as well as participate in organised programmes.
Meanwhile, assistant director of AADK Sarawak Yuliani Yahya said that in August, they had conducted 82 operations either headed by the agency or as an integrated effort with other enforcement agencies.
She said that the 797 positive screenings had been conducted by AADK Sarawak from January to August.
Earlier in the press conference, Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah presented the OSC MIDS monthly report for August.
