Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman suggested today that the country’s government could soon make amendments to laws regarding criminal procedures against habitual drug users.
Speaking to reporters outside of Parliament today, Malaysia’s youngest minister outlined that in a meeting with fellow Cabinet members last week, none other than Prime Minister Mahathir weighed in on the matter, saying that both the Home Affairs Ministry, along with the Chief Secretary, should work together with Youth and Sports to gather more information on the matter.
“My ministry is involved in this because drugs can kill the future of youths,” he said.
“Our stand is that we should distinguish between the drugs addicts that require treatment, and the drug trafficker. Addicts are not criminals and should not be sent to prison.”
He added that young addicts should be given a second chance at life, as many of the areas hardest hit by drug use are poorer areas with chronic unemployment.
However, the minister — best known for his outspoken stands that occasionally end in swift U-turns — stopped short of giving a time frame on when such legislation could take place, instead saying that the committee tasked with compiling information should focus their efforts on understanding the situation.
Other factors that need to be examined include “standards and legal issues, such as the quantity” of drugs an individual has in their possession.
It was not the first time that the matter has come up among Cabinet ministers, with Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad announcing in June that the government had plans to remove criminal penalties on drugs that were determined to be for personal use. At the time, he told media that this was not a move to legalize drug distribution, or trafficking, but instead to cease prosecuting addicts.
Well, after seeing first-hand how drugs affect some of the poorest communities in this country, we’d love for this to happen. We’d also love to see better drug education, so that users understand the risks of taking drugs, and particularly sharing needles. And while we’re at it, sex education, especially better information on HIV transmission and risks, is also seriously lacking.
So if we could just manage to get all of those things working in tandem, then we’d be making some progress on minimizing harm to addicts. Till then, the government paying lip service to a more humane drug policy will do about as much good as all that lip service the government paid to ending child marriage. (That is, not much.)
