AADK personnel inspecting a bag belonging to a drug suspect during an operation.
KUCHING (June 18): Parents need to get their children who are taking drugs the proper help instead of being in denial and blaming it on their child being disturbed by spirits (kena sampuk) or ‘saka’.
They need to bring their child in for drug abuse intervention instead of to traditional healers or witchdoctors (bomoh) to cure them, National Anti Drugs Agency (AADK) Sarawak director Iskandar Turkee said.
“The reason why some drug abusers do not get early intervention is because their parents are in denial or protective of them. Stigma and labelling by the public play a part in this, and they don’t want to reveal that their child is taking drugs,” he said at a press conference on the One Stop Committee’s (OSC) monthly report on addressing drug and substance abuse (MIDS) here yesterday.
It was held at the office of Welfare, Community Well-being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah in Bangunan Baitulmakmur (Masja), Petra Jaya.
He stressed that early intervention will enable the youngster to kick the habit faster, and volunteering to attend drug intervention is very much encouraged.
“Don’t delay in getting help. There was one father who suspected that his son in tertiary education was taking drugs, cannabis, and after a few months, the son no longer took it (cannabis).”
This proved that early intervention is great in stopping the situation from getting worse and the drug abuser can get rid of their addiction faster, he said.
Similarly, he said parents and individuals should ignore stigma and labelling, and get help for drug abuse intervention and management.
“Don’t delay the intervention at the early stage of addiction. Get help from professionals. There’s a lot of help we can provide. Don’t seek help at the wrong place.”