More than a million Malaysians are drug addicts

PUTRAJAYA - The level of drug addiction in this country is worrying when the latest estimates show that 1,097,408 citizens of this country have fallen into drug addiction.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said even sadder, 328,640 of that number are those aged between 15 to 29 years.

“From that number, 1,051,712 are male addicts while another 45,696 are female addicts,” he said in a statement after chairing a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Combating Drug Abuse (JKMD) with the Home Ministry through the National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK) on Monday.

In fact, he said the findings of a Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia (UKM) study in 2020 showed that for every 100 youths in the country, six of them admitted to having taken drugs while the other four admitted to still actively taking drugs during the period of the study.

“Thus, I am giving three months to the Home Ministry and the National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK) to work on coordination between several related agencies to design and organise initiatives or programmes that are effective and beneficial.

“This step is to ensure that drug symptoms can be cured more effectively in addition to working on rehabilitation for existing drug addicts,” he explained.