T

he government has repeated its commitment to send people arrested for using drugs to rehabilitation centers, but that the policy only applies for first-time drug users.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said on Tuesday that the policy was in accordance with the 35/2005 Law on narcotics.

 He made the statement after a closed-door meeting involving several government institutions including the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), the National Police and the Health Ministry.

'€œWe held this meeting to empower the BNN because the drug problem [in this country] has become extremely serious. It is an extraordinary crime so we talked about how to organize and handle drug abusers and traffickers between different ministries,'€ Luhut told reporters on Tuesday.

Although Luhut said that relevant institutions had agreed to immediately rehabilitate those who were caught using drugs for the first time, he acknowledged that more talks were needed to discuss what efforts the government should take against repeat offenders and how they would be treated.

'€œWe are leaning more toward rehabilitation for those who have only been caught once as there are those who don'€™t understand the consequences. For example, there are some who take ecstasy so they have more time to study instead of sleeping,'€ Luhut said.

Earlier this year, President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo declared that the nation had a '€œdrug emergency'€ and called for the death penalty for drug dealers as well as rejecting the clemency pleas for convicted traffickers.

However, despite the harsh penalties imposed on drug dealers, drug abuse reportedly continues to be rampant in the country.

The BNN estimated that between 3.8 million to 4.2 million people aged between 10 and 59 had used or were actively using drugs in 2014.

The Narcotics Law stipulates that drug users must be sent to rehabilitation centers, but police officers rarely choose the option of sending drug users to rehab and reportedly often use the threat of arrest to extort money from them.

National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said last week, through an internal telegram, that drug users would be immediately sent to rehabilitation centers after being assessed by a team of doctors and legal experts, instead of locking them up in detention facilities.

However, BNN chief Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso has maintained his firm stance that drug users, whether casual users or addicts, must be subject to a legal process to have a deterrent effect on potential drug users.

'€œWe'€™re talking about drug users and prosecuting them could have a deterrent effect so that they won'€™t make the mistake again. Either way you look at it, drug users make a conscious decision to use drugs and are not forced into taking them. If the users don'€™t report themselves then it means that they took the drugs on purpose and must be held legally responsible for that,'€ he said.

Budi also dismissed the police chief'€™s instructions, which were signed by his predecessor and current detective division chief Comr. Gen. Anang Iskandar, and explained that rehabilitation was an option that investigators could consider but was not compulsory.

'€œThe law is clearly more important that the internal telegram. I still believe that investigators should take a look at the law,'€ he said.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Nila F. Moeloek declined to disclose any details of her ministry'€™s role in the issue. However, she noted that getting to the root of the drug problem was necessary.

'€œWhat do these people use drugs for? The root of the problem is [the lack of] protection. Parents are extremely important and should communicate with their children often [to avoid drug use],'€ she said.