AN EDITORIAL FROM MALAYSIA

Switching off party drugs

As long as it is done in the pursuit of a good time, societies prefer to close an eye to small doses of illegal substance abuse. As evidence of harm and stories of wrecked lives hit the newsstands, warning posters and advertisements go up. Small-time drug peddlers are busted, a few known dives of drug activity shut down. It is only when organised crime gets into the act that war is reluctantly declared. That point appears to have arrived with the party drug Ecstasy and its even more dangerous relative, syabu. Since the dance culture went global around 2000, hardly a weekend has gone by without a publicised raid on nightclubs doing a suspiciously roaring sale in thirst-quenching mineral water and soft drinks. The hundreds unlucky enough to have guilt in their urine are usually let off with a fine or warning. But there are telling symptoms that the criminal element has expanded to involve much more than young people getting high. Police have discovered that otherwise legitimate discos are being used as fronts for drug distribution. Vice, and its gangster minders, has pried its way in; weapons have been found, and sometimes used, in the premises. The racketeers have been emboldened to turn up the volume, driving away businesses and jangling the nerves of residential neighbourhoods.

Ecstasy, a "soft" drug that had lulled the authorities into indecision of its far-reaching consequences, is turning hard. Demand and supply have pushed prices down. Drug barons are diversifying into a product that promises to be more lucrative than heroin and other narcotics. Last month, Deputy Inspector General of Police Datuk Musa Aman instructed his subordinates to apply Section 15(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act, which carries a maximum fine of RM5,000 or jail or both, on those testing positive for the drug. Like the heroin junkie, the Ecstasy-popper is now being associated with an underworld whose ill effects extend well beyond the frenzy of a night out. In its annual report of 2003, the United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board said Ecstasy use was spreading. Overall, it saw little sign of any reduction in drugs production or consumption, or in the heavy toll - in violence and the corruption of public institutions — that results from the illicit trade. For that reason, the police's imminent crackdown on the barely disguised avenues of Ecstasy abuse has been a long time coming. If the karaoke joints, pubs and discos are not deterred or closed now, they will go on to wreak much greater havoc than the hordes of young people risking brain damage on the dance floor.

Yet police action will not stop the hedonism that fuels the popularity of the drug. Local authorities must muscle in, too. Ecstasy consumption is not difficult to spot, and the fact that so many of its outlets have been allowed to keep going for so long must surely be attributable to a less innocent closing of eyes and ears.

21 February 2005
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