The authorities have been urged to step up enforcement against drug pushers and addicts to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country.

This call came from National HIV/AIDS Awareness Campaign Roadshow adviser Datuk Liow Tiong Lai yesterday.

He said statistics revealed that most people infected with HIV/AIDS are drug addicts.

He said: "Although Malaysia has strict laws against drug trafficking, drugs are still easily accessible. More stringent action is needed to fight the drug menace."

Liow was speaking at the launch of the National HIV/AIDS Awareness Campaign Roadshow event in Petaling Street. It was organised by the Young Malaysian Movement (YMM).

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Wrong company is to be blamed when a prisoner or a dadah addict is released after serving his prison sentence, and he goes back to his old ways in the first six months.

While many of them want to turn over a new leaf, some of them face rejection from their own family members because of the crimes that they had committed.

The stigma of being a criminal stays for a long time, and many of these ex-prisoners have no place to turn to but their old friends who eventually influence them to go back to their old habits.

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PUTRAJAYA, Dec 15:

A one-year-old baby is paying the price for her parents' folly by landing behind bars.

The baby is at the Customs Department lock-up in Nilai with her mother, who was detained last night with her husband for being in possession of 3.4kg of ketamine worth over RM200,000.

Senior Customs officials decided to exercise their discretion to allow her to be with her mother, as she was breast-feeding.

The department normally hands over infants to the next-of-kin of those detained.

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Bachok, Thurs

A police procedure yielded results when a suspect was asked to perform squats.

A suspected dadah pusher ejected a small bottle containing what is believed to be dadah when asked to do squats in Chabang Empat Salam, Rantau Panjang, on Friday.

Kelantan police narcotics chief DSP Zaaba Budin said the bottle slipped out of the 32-year-old's anus.

He had earlier been stopped at a roadblock mounted by the Anti-Smuggling Unit.

"The suspect was in a car when stopped about 5.30pm. He was taken to a nearby hut and told to remove his clothes and do squats. That was when the bottle emerged from his anus," he said.

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PUTRAJAYA, Wed.

The Federal Court today upheld a lower court's decision which spared two men the hangman's noose for trafficking dadah.

Federal Court judge Datuk P.S. Gill said it was unsafe to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeal as the prosecution's case was made up of many inferences and presumptions.

"We dismiss the appeal," he said in the unanimous decision.

Sitting with Gill were Datuk Richard Malanjum and Datuk Ariffin Zakaria.

On July 22, 2002, the Court of Appeal reversed the decision of the High Court which had convicted construction worker Muhammad Safarudin Baha, 26, and mechanic Mohd Ashraf Endut, 25, of trafficking one kilogramme of cannabis.

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Police believe they have uncovered a syndicate dealing in cocaine following the arrest of two African nationals and the seizure of the drug in Jalan Kuchai Lama on Monday night.

The two, aged 25 and 26, who claimed to be from South Africa, were detained separately for the possession of 17 packets of a substance believed to be cocaine.

The Malay Mail learnt that the last time city police made a cocaine seizure was in 2002. They found 40 capsules containing the drug in the stomach of a Nigerian national.

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Bukit Mertajam, Nov 23:

Two Indonesian couples had dreams of making it rich in Malaysia.

Leaving their hometown in Aceh, they arrived in Penang in July, obtaining re-fugee status from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

However, the four allegedly became involved in drug trafficking.

In the four months that followed, the men and their wives became suppliers of ganja and syabu to addicts in the northern region.

Their double-storey house in Taman Markisa displayed expensive furniture, suspected to have been bought with proceeds from the sale of drugs.

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Kunak: Sabah Umno Youth Information Chief, Salleh Kalbi, said the drug addiction problem among local youths had become increasingly serious in the State.

More alarming was the increasing number of students indulging in drug activities, he added.

He said according to the National Narcotics Agency, the most notable kind of drug taken is Syabu (methampethamine), being widely used in the Silam area, involving Kunak and Lahad Datu.

Salleh said this while officiating at the recent mini convocation ceremony of the Kunak district Kemas kindergartens, at the community centre here.

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Mohd Dahlan Yusof is not only a recovered dadah addict but someone committed to rehabilitating those given to the habit.

Two years of being dadah-free after five years of misery has proven to him that there is a life after dadah.

This is a message that the dancer and choreographer wants to share with the young.

Dahlan, 29, told a gathering on Pulau Gaya today of the living hell he endured while under the influence of dadah.

"I am a better person now and determined to make a success of myself.

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A man who claimed to be a bodyguard of the Pahang royal household was among 12 people arrested during a crime prevention operation around Dataran Merdeka early yesterday.

The man, believed to be in his 50s, was initially detained as the Proton Waja he was driving had a strobe light similar to the one used by cops in unmarked cars. The Waja was fitted with the emblem of the Kerabat Di Raja Pahang (Pahang Royalty).

The man claimed he was sight-seeing with his girlfriend, a 22-year- old student of a college in Nilai.

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Shared responsibility to combat the drug menace, says Eric Menggatal: It is time the public changes the common perception that combating the drug menace rests solely with the authorities.

Sepanggar MP Eric Majimbun said it must be a shared responsibility between the public and enforcement authorities.

"I see that normally the public would point their fingers at enforcement authorities like the police when it comes to solving and handling crime cases, including those related to drug abuse, in their respective areas.

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HIS name is Suresh. At the age of 19, he was a heroin addict. He was a physical wreck, infected with AIDS, tuberculosis and Hepatitis C. He was taken to hospital before he sought help from a half-way home run by Malaysian CARE.

Upon recommendation, he was taken into Green Pastures Regeneration and Renewal Centre for a two-year rehabilitation programme.

"Within a short time, his overall condition improved. Soon, he was taking part in physical activities," said Geoff Matthews, who founded (along with Chris Sekar and St Andrews Church) the Green Pastures Home for the Rehabilitation of Ex-Drug Addicts. It was first located in Klang in 1991), and moved to Taman United, Kuala Lumpur in 1993.

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The sprawling Kuala Lumpur Hospital compound is 'dadah-free' after a syndicate leader was caught carrying suspected heroin in a plastic bag on Friday.

Clients of the 35-year-old man, known as Saphi, included patients who bought the dadah at the carpark or nearby staff quarters.

City police's Narcotics Division arrested the man, who had eluded arrest for a year, at a parking lot near the Emergency Unit about 2.30am.

The team seized 90 packets of dadah, believed to be heroin, weighing about 182 grammes from the suspect.

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Kota Baru, Kelantan, Tues. The filming of drama Siti Aisyah may be affected by the arrest of four crew members and a supporting actress for suspected dadah abuse. They were detained in a guest-house in Kubang Kerian early today.

The raid was carried out by two teams from the Kota Baru district station and state headquarters, led by Chief Inspector Mohd Uzir Ismail following a tip-off.

Police also seized an unspecified amount of compressed dried leaves believed to be cannabis.

Kelantan narcotics chief DSP Zaaba Budin, who confirmed the arrest, said the five had been remanded to assist in police investigations.

More than 30 suspected dadah addicts were detained in separate raids in other parts of the district.

[end]

Kota Kinabalu: Syabu seizures increased by a staggering 343.2 per cent this year with over 15,413gms seized till September.

A total of 3,477.64gms were seized over the same period last year, State Commissioner of Police, Datuk Mangsor Ismail, said this had to do with the seizure of eight kgs of Syabu that was about to be sent through a courier service company in September.

He also disclosed that fewer addicts were arrested this year with 4,385 detained till September compared to 4,446 previously.

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A former Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) student was sentenced to 10 years' jail and 10 strokes of the rotan by the High Court yesterday after pleading guilty to an alternative charge of possessing cannabis.

Judge Datuk K. N. Segara ordered Fazil Ibrahim, 28, to serve his sentence from the date of his arrest on May 22, 2002.

In passing sentence, Segara said: "It is such a pity. You are a bright student, and it is sad to see your life go to waste.

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Kota Kinabalu: There have been many cases of dadah addicts arrested but being released without being charged, a seminar on the Role of Women in Combating Dadah here was told.

Chairman of Pemadam Kota Kinabalu City, Dr Chua Kim Hing, attributed this to the inability to test blood samples and verify the results speedily.

"In accordance with the procedure, a blood sample from anyone suspected of being an addict needs to be tested and confirmed by a government doctor with the use of a special machine. Unfortunately, in Kota Kinabalu, there is only one such machine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital," he lamented.

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"You Should Be Ashamed Of Yourself And Apologise To Your Country And Countrymen Who Come Here To Find A Job And Earn An Income Legally."

High Court judge Datuk Abdull Hamid Embong said this to Mardani Hussin, 29, an Indonesian charged with trafficking in 927g of cannabis.

"You should also apologise to Malaysians for being involved in dadah," he said.

"You entered Malaysia illegally in February 2002 and within eight months you were caught with the drug."

In sentencing Mardani to death, Abdull Hamid said there was only one sentence for dadah trafficking.

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GLUE-sniffing will be an offence under a new law being drafted to curb the abuse of intoxicating substances.

"Right now, there is no law that can be used to charge someone who sniffs glue because it is not considered a type of drug," said Internal Security Ministry parliamentary secretary Datuk Abu Seman Yusop.

However, he said many factors had to be considered because the Government could not ban the use of glue, which was important in certain sectors such as handicraft-making and automotive.

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Kota Kinabalu: More than 70 per cent of the 1,229 drug addicts detected in Sabah in the first seven months this year comprised youths, a development that has the State very worried, Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Yahya Hussin said.

He said based on the statistics issued by the National Drugs Information System the youths were mostly aged between 20 and 30 years.

"We also found 943 of them to be be new drug users," he said when closing a skills programme for women at Wisma Sedco.

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