Majority of drug addicts in KL are living in PPR flats: Nada

PUTRAJAYA: The majority of drug addicts, drug dealers and suppliers are housed in 27 high-risk areas in Kuala Lumpur including the People's Housing Projects (PPR) in San Peng, Air Panas, Sungai Bunus, Desa Rejang, and Sri Sabah.

National Anti-Drug Agency (Nada) director-general Datuk Suhaimi Abdullah said among the hotspots with the most number of drug addicts, dealers and suppliers were these housing areas.

Suhaimi said a total of 2,100 new drug offenders from these 27 high-risk areas in Kuala Lumpur were under the surveillance of the agency this year.

"From 3,000 people that were caught in Kuala Lumpur, 70 per cent or 2,100 people are from these flats. They include youths, children, men and women," he said during a press conference today.

The agency, he said, had visited every state in the country to brief the leaders on ways to address the growing number of drug abusers in the country.

"We started our 'tour' around the country on Feb 11 to record and register the number of drug abusers in each state, also to speak to state leaders, government bodies and non- governmental agencies (NGOs) on how to eradicate the social problem which is prevalent among youths," he said.

Suhaimi said the profiling conducted by Nada found a total of 172 high risks areas in the country.

He said last year alone, 26,668 new cases were registered with the agency compared to 21,777 in 2014.

"A total of 25, 655 were males which was an increase of 21.7 per cent (21,072) from 2014. Whereas for females, the number increased by 44.9 per cent from 2014 (669 cases) to 1,013 new cases in 2015," he said.

Suhaimi said the number of youths also increased to 717 cases in 2015 compared to 622 cases in 2014.

Some 340,000 people with drug problems were registered with Nada since the 1990s.

The agency has adopted various measures to help in the eradication of drug abuse in the country.

Apart from ongoing measures to fight drugs, several programmes like "Program Intelek Asuhan Rohani" (Pintar) for primary school students and "Sayangi Hidup Elak Derita Selamanya" (Shield) for secondary school students was started in January this year to educate them on the danger of drugs.

"We have identified students with drug problems and provided three-day camps for them to help them overcome this problem," he added.