Four elementary school boys in the Indonesian province of Riau accidentally took ecstasy allegedly belonging to one of the boys’ father, identified as a 46-year-old with the initials HR, who apparently didn’t do enough to hide it from his kids.
According to the police, on Monday, HR’s 2-year-old son found the stash of ecstasy in his car. The toddler then gave it to his 8-year-old brother.
“The kids thought the green pills in their parents’ car were candy. They cut up the pills and shared them with friends,” Riau Police Spokesperson Sunarto told the media yesterday, as quoted by Detik.
The 8-year-old shared the pills with four of his friends, aged 7-9. They all swallowed the pills except for the 2-year-old and one friend who was put off by the pill’s bitterness after he tasted it.
The kids who took the pills then complained of headaches and were taken to hospital.
“They are feeling better now. They have received treatment,” Sunarto said.
HR was arrested by the police and has been named a suspect for narcotics use after confessing that the ecstasy was his. Police have not mentioned if he could face further charges such as criminal negligence.
This unfortunate accident will likely fuel paranoia among parents in Indonesia who are often told cautionary (but unsubstantiated) stories by authorities about drug dealers giving children narcotics in the form of candy (in one case, authorities were on alert after a particular candy caused symptoms of addiction in some children — it turned out that kids just really like candy).
Former narcotics agency head Budi Waseso continuously brought up the idea that narcotics rings were secretly slipping their products into the food and candy of Indonesian students as young as kindergarteners in a long-term plan to get the next generation hooked on drugs, even if that makes zero economic sense for drug traffickers.
