Laila (not her real name), 52, is fighting to save the future of her 32-year-old son, known only as suspect A, who is addicted to crystal methamphetamine and on trial for drug possession. She is trying to persuade the Bandung District Court to order her son into rehabilitation, instead of prison.
Laila, accompanied by NGO Rumah Cemara, which represents drug addicts and people with HIV/AIDS, attended her son’s trial at the court on Thursday in Bandung, West Java.
A is standing trial for possessing 1.7 grams of crystal methamphetamine. His legal team is from the Bandung Legal Aid Institute.
The court was adjourned because A’s lawyers were not ready with their defense statement.
Laila said she hoped the board of judges would approve her plea to send her eldest son to a rehabilitation center, instead of prison.
She said that her son had been addicted to narcotics since he was a junior high-school student and was declared by a doctor to suffer from an acute psychological disorder and strong addiction.
She said she had asked for her son to be detained in a medical treatment room at Kebonwaru Penitentiary in Bandung since October 2011, at the request of her son’s doctor.
“My son has been imprisoned three times now, but that only makes him become more addicted. It’s proof that prison is not the right solution for drug addicts,” Laila said outside the courtroom on Thursday.
Rumah Cemara’s program manager, Ardani Suryadarma, said that rehabilitation should be one of the options judges had in deciding on a verdict for drug addicts to give the latter a chance to heal.
But unfortunately, the Bandung District Court has never handed down a verdict of rehabilitation to any drug abuser despite that the 2009 Narcotics Law allows such an option to suppress the number of drug abusers, according to Ardani.
Ardani said that West Java’s courts had only ever recommended rehabilitation over a prison sentence in two drug abuse cases out of 28 that produced sentences.
“And that happened at the Sukabumi District Court, never in Bandung, which is the city with the highest number of drug abuse cases,” Ardani said. (mtq)
