Law prohibiting glue sniffing to be tabled soon

Traders who sell inhalants to young children will be in trouble once a law to prohibit glue sniffing and abuse of inhalants in general is passed. National Association for Drug Prevention Malaysia (Pemadam) Secretary General Dato Kamilia Ibrahim said that there was a suggestion to make an anti-glue sniffing law as the problem is getting rampant in the country. In pointing out that the draft of the act is with the Attorney General and would be tabled in the next parliamentary sitting, she said the act would ban the misuse of inhalants.

This means that inhalant sellers can be convicted so that the items cannot be easily obtained by children. Those involved in glue sniffing are children aged 13 and below. If possible, we will prohibit sales to 13-year-olds and below. We don’t want glue normally used to repair shoes to be easily obtained. The glue is sold very cheaply and a group of 10 children may only have to fork out around 20 sen each. Pemadam will put extra effort to push the government to enforce the act after it is passed by parliament.

Current students’ involvement in drugs, she said that the group only represented 2.11 per cent or 261 people whom the National Anti-Dadah Agency (AADK) registered as drug addicts as of 2008. The total number of registered drug addicts in the whole country is 12,352, of whom 12,076 are males. The highest rate at 69.67 per cent are youths aged 19 to 29 while 28.22 per cent are adults. On Pemadam’s Drug Free Community by 2015, there were five target groups under the goal - family, community, schools, higher institutions of learning and the workforce.
The target for this year is the workforce and Pemadam will try its best to reach the target.