Fatimah speaking at the press conference that was conducted via Zoom.
KUCHING (April 21): Kuching tops the list with the highest number of illicit drug related arrests at 614 from January this year till now, said Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.
“Since January this year, Kuching is the district with the highest number of arrests being made for such activities at 614 arrests, followed by Samarahan with 217, Bintulu 195, Sibu 161 and Miri 159,” said the state Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development.
Limbang, Lawas, Kapit, Sarikei, Betong, Sri Aman, Serian and Bau were considered as medium risk for illicit drug and substance abuse activities, while Lundu, Simunjan, Saratok, Lubok Antu, Kanowit, Meradong, Song, Matu, Dalat, Mukah, Belaga, Subis, Telang Usan and Marudi are low risk she said, adding that none of the districts in the state were completely free of drug abuse activities.
She said this during at a press conference conducted via Zoom platform yesterday to share the findings of the report of One Stop Committee on Controlling Drug and Substance Issues for the month of March this year.
A report shared during the press conference stated that 731 cases involving 770 arrests were made in March this year involving substance and drug abuse from 577 operations conducted by Narcotic Crime Investigation Department (JSJN), National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK) Sarawak and the Royal Malaysian Customs Department.
Since the beginning of 2021, 2,202 arrests were made out of 2,218 operations conducted by JSJN, Royal Malaysian Customs Departments and AADK Sarawak.
Kuching constituted 26.85 per cent of the arrests made since January, followed by Samarahan with 9.49 per cent, Bintulu with 8.53 per cent, Sibu with 7.04 per cent, Miri with 6.95 per cent and Limbang with 4.72 per cent or 108 arrests
“An overwhelming of 92.4 per cent of the arrests were male and the remaining were female,” said the report.
The breakdown of the age groups from the arrests made was those aged 18 and above constituting 6.47 per cent, 22.09 per cent from those aged 19 to 24, 23.71 per cent from those aged 25 to 29, 19.82 per cent from those aged 30 to 34, 16.93 per cent from those aged 35 to 40 and 10.98 per cent from those aged 40 and above.
It also stated that 577 enforcement operations to break the chain of illicit drug supply had been conducted in March alone with possibly 379,845 incidence of drug abuse being prevented, saving an estimate of 90,839 individuals from the scourge of drug abuse.
“The next stage is to curb the demand for illicit drug and substance. For March this year, we had made a total of 526 arrests involving individuals who were tested positive for drug abuse in their urine test,” said the report.
It pointed out a total of 114 drug patients were currently undergoing recovery programme in Narcotic Addiction rehabilitation Centre (Puspen), 1,915 individuals were placed under AADK monitoring, 27 receiving treatments voluntary in Cure and Care Centre Kuching, 9 in One Stop Centre for Addition (OSCA) and 87 in non-governmental organisations last month.
“The ratio of drug users who are currently receiving treatments were one to eight, meaning there are eight more drug users who did not come forward to seek treatments for every patient being treated,” the report added.
Thus, the committee said they were planning to set up an OSCA centre at selected health clinics in high-risk districts to enable drug abuse patients to seek treatments easily.
For the amount of illicit drugs seized since January this year, the report pointed out a total of 73.67 kg of drugs worth about RM5 million had been seized, comprising 30.9 kg from Kuching, 27.7 kg from Miri, 11.45 kg from Lundu, 3.62 kg from Samarahan and 8 g (0.0008 kg) from Tebedu.
In March, the report said 30.47 kg of methamphetamine, 3.27 kg of Ecstasy, 2kg of marijuana and 0.56 kg of Ketamin were seized with a total value of RM2.1 million – an increase of 157 per cent compared with February.
“A total of 14,974 illicit drug pills have been seized throughout the state for March, comprising 14,900 Ecstasy pills, 62 Eramin pills and 12 Nospan pills. Over 23,000 pills have been seized since January this year,” it said.
As for the offence of testing positive for drug abuse under Section 15(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drug Act 1952, it said 460 cases with 442 arrests were reported throughout the state in March.
“This brings the cumulative offenders testing positive for drug abuse to 1,307 since the beginning of the year,” it added.
For offences under the Drug Dependents (Treatment and Rehabilitation) Act 1983 (Amendment 1983), the state had reported 84 cases with similar number of arrests from the 53 operations conducted by AADK Sarawak. A total of 261 arrests were made under the Act since the beginning of the year.
“For those placed under monitoring, Sarawak has reported 2,010 individuals under the monitoring programme in March, with 1,915 being monitored by AADK and the remaining by the police.”
A total of 1,634 individuals have came forward to receive treatments for alcoholic and smoking addiction at state health department facilities last month, bringing the cumulative figure of patients seeking treatments for such addiction to 4,122 since beginning of the year.
Moreover, JSJN Sarawak had seized various assets belonging to drug peddlers worth RM366,221 in March and a total of RM1.038 million worth of assets was seized since January this year.
The committee also pointed out 83 people were jailed last month for being involved in substance and drug abuse, and a total of 390 offenders had been jailed in the state for the same offence since the beginning of the year.
Nonetheless, the plans outline for the state-level One Stop Committee on Controlling Drug and Substance Issues for this year are to increase the number of operations to foil activities related to substance and drugs abuse, enhancing recovery and treatment intervention for drug abuse victims and strengthening the committee’s administration at the grassroot level.
Other proposals included to set up intervention and development centres for community affected by substance abused, increasing the service areas of OSCA at the district level, intensifying prevention programmes for high-risk groups and reinforcing the tactical and logistic requirements for enforcement purpose.
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