Malaysia is not yet ready to liberalise its policy on drug use to the point where marijuana can be made legal, said Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar today.
The IGP maintained that legalising the cultivation, sale, and use of ganja in the country would only lead Malaysians, especially the youth, to more dangerous narcotic substances.
“In our view, it has not reached the time for us to be liberal. There are a lot of young Malaysians who misuse ganja. They also use it as (a) platform to go on to other more serious drugs,” he told The Malay Mail Online‘s Kamles Kumar at a press conference in Bukit Aman today.
“PDRM does not support and in fact opposes it being decriminalised.”
Khalid added that drugs should not be made legal because substance abuse was not permitted in Islam and other other faiths.
“It is also illegal against religion. Not just Islam, I’m sure other religions also don’t allow intoxication.”
However, Khalid conceded that if marijuana were to be used in its capacity as a form of medical treatment, it could be allowed under the law – provided there was strict regulation as to who would be able to get their hands on it.
“If it is used as a medicine, it should be regulated. Not just anyone can take it, there must be controlled prescriptions from the doctors.
“Like morphine, it is used as a medicine but is under tight control. If it is true that ganja has medicinal properties then it should be properly executed,” he said.
The IGP’s comments were in response to calls made last week by a member of Putrajaya’s Youth Parliament initiative and the UMNO Youth assistant secretary from the party’s Pandan division that marijuana be decriminalised and regulated for use by Malaysians.
Muhamad Ridhwan Muhamad Rosli, a representative from Selangor who also heads the Youth Parliament’s sprituality and religious committee, said that the proposal was suggested to him by various youths, increasingly so in light of Malaysia’s ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).
He also said that young Malaysians he had spoken to didn’t even regard weed as an actual narcotic.
Syed Rosli Jamalullail, assistant secretary of the Taman Cempaka, Pandan Division chapter of UMNO Youth, contends that marijuana does not cause an individual to be come aggressive after consuming it, nor does weed result in impaired judgment – a stark difference from the effects of alcohol, which is allowed under the law.
