Your letters: Drugs cases along borders

Paper Edition | Page: 8

I refer to a news report titled “Officials seize Rp 7.7b in crystal meth at airport,” (The Jakarta Post, Sept. 18, p. 10)

Once again, it is a commendable effort by our border officials for spotting and foiling this smuggling attempt.

Rp. 7.7 billion (US$807,129) worth of meth is a huge amount for ordinary people and around 5.6 kilograms of the drug would have saved a few people from consuming it.

However, as much as it seems that a large amount of meth has been nabbed, it is nevertheless a very small portion of the total amount of drugs, not only meth, that enter Indonesia.

It is extremely important for people that the larger smugglers, distributors and even local producers of the vile substance be completely stopped by officials in all relevant areas.

This is really crucial as drugs such as meth have and will continue to destroy the younger generation of the country. These youngsters are the future of the country.

As long as these drugs continue to circulate around the country, people will continue to consume them, even with extremely strict and punitive rules in place.

In a nutshell, the oft cited plea to “get to the root of the problem” continues to surface.

It would be really useless to only nab the small time distributors and smugglers, even if they face the death penalty, as these underlings are ultimately expendable pawns that the big distributors are not in shortage of.

However, if the big players in the drug trade are nabbed and eliminated, then the problem will likely be solved, or at least be severely diminished.

In terms of how to do this, we shall leave it up to the authorities and based on good news like this, trust that they be able to step up even more and nab the big players once and for all.

Alvin Foeng
Jakarta