According to Zahid Hamidi, our deputy minister, drug abuse in Malaysia has reached a critical level and now poses a serious threat to public safety, economic stability, and the country’s social structure.
Citing the latest data, he said there were 192,857 drug users and addicts in the country, 61% of whom were aged between 15 and 39 as of 2024.
If you were to see the state with the highest level of drug abuse, you will notice an unmistakable pattern.
The top 4 states with the highest level of drug abuse are all predominantly states with a majority Malay Muslim population. Kelantan recorded the highest rate of drug abuse with 1,130 users per 100,000 population, followed by Terengganu (974), Perlis (965) and Kedah (898).
Why is that?
Well, my theory is that it is because non-Muslims, have access to alcohol, which is the most widely used legal drug in the world.
In other words, non-Muslims also use drugs, but our usage of drugs is not counted as drug abuse, because the drug that most of us use – which is alcohol – is a legal drug.
In the Malay belt however, alcohol is either not as widely available or there is a great stigma attached to its usage, so the Muslim youths are likely resorting to illegal drugs, to have access to drugs.
I think at some point, the powers-that-be will have to accept that addiction is the way that most people deal with stress, and substance addiction is likely the most popular addiction in the world.
You can ban drugs, but you cannot ban stress.
When people are stressed, they will find a way to relieve their stress, in one way or another.
At least non-Muslim youths have alcohol to relieve their stress, but what do Muslim youths have? When they are stressed, how do they manage your stress?
I am sure that the religious amongst the Muslims will say that if you are stressed, just pray, and your stress will go away – not only religious Muslims, religious non-Muslims also have a tendency to say this – but I am pretty sure that just like how prayers do not reduce the stress of many non-Muslims, it does not reduce the stress of many Muslims either.
The powers-that-be tend to not realise why drugs are often used by the working class to address their stress, because the powers-that-be have power.
Of all drugs, power is probably the King of Drugs, because those who have access to power, do not need any other drug to handle their stress –power alone is sufficient to address all of their stress.
However, it is only the elites who are able to indulge in power. For the working class, it is usually only substance abuse that is within our affordable range.
If you have power – if you are able to make people do as you bid – you probably won’t be addicted to anything – just having the power to make people do as you wish, will be all that you need to make your stress go away.
But most working classes have no power – as a matter of fact, most of us in the working class are the ones that have power imposed on us. As much as power relieves stress when you are able to impose it on others, it adds to your stress when it is imposed on you.
When you are young and working class, you tend to have powers imposed upon you by various sources – from the government to your boss to an elderly relative – there is always somebody that is imposing their power on you.
When you not only have stresses of your own, but are also subjected to stresses that are imposed upon you by many quarters, how are you supposed to manage this stress?
Please don’t just say go and pray or go and play sports.
Even if prayers do reduce your stress, it doesn’t work on everybody, and it often only works when you have grown older, and mastered praying as well as become more mature.
As for sports, it is not the case that someone from the working class will have the talent, time and energy, to relieve their stress through sports. If you are working as a waiter or a cook for 8 or 10 hours a day, for example, you cannot be expected to go to a futsal field or gym regularly, to relieve your stress.
And even if you do indulge in exercise to relieve your stress, the reason why exercise releases your stress is also drugs-related – when we exercise, the reason why our stress goes down is because the brain will release naturally forming drugs like endorphins, which acts like morphine-based pain-relievers.
Anyway my point here is that people – especially young and working-class people – deal with a lot of stress.
Drug use is often the only way that they can manage their stress.
The non-Muslim youths and working class have legal drugs like alcohol to help them manage their stress, but what does the Muslim have?
If they have nothing, then like Zahid Hamidi said, illegal drug abuse in Malaysia will reach critical levels and pose a serious threat to public safety, economic stability, and the country’s social structure.
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