Drug Abuse Among Teenagers in Malaysia

On March 17, 2017, Malaysia public attention was drawn to an incident that emphasized the drug addiction problem among teenager in Malaysia. The Sin Chew Daily news reported that a Chinese girl of age 19 years old who was driving on opposite to the right side of North-South Highway, caused a fatal accident involving five victims and one of them died at the scene while the rest of them were all injured. She was driving in a state of hallucination because she was under the influence of amphetamine when the fatal accident took place. Drug abuse or substance abuse is best described as the use of certain chemicals with the purpose of creating pleasurable effects on the brain. Drug misuse is an issue that plagues society worldwide and is rampant among the teenagers in Malaysia. According to National Anti-Drug Agency, the number of drug addicts nationwide from year 2014 until September 2018 is investigated to be 133,684 with the youngest drug abuser of age 7 year old. Drug abuse can be categorised into three; depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens. Depressents cause depression of the brain's faculties, stimulants give rise to alertness and increase bursts of activity, hallucinogens give hallucinations and the feeling of dissociation from oneself. There are many type of drugs; some of the most commonly used drugs among teenagers include Opioids, Benzodiazepines, Cocaine, Marijuana, Ecstasy, Methamphetamines, Inhalants, Adderall, Anabolic, Steroids.

There are many factors linked to drug abuse among younger generation. In school, peer pressure is one of the most important influences among students. Students tend to practice the same thing as their peers. When a person begins engage with peers who use drugs, she or he will easily become attracted to do the same thing. Most students begin to be affected when they often invite their friends to use drugs. The drug addict peers must easily influence a participant in that group as the strong bond of friendship between them builds the trust and confident within themselves. Teenagers also start to use drug out of curiousity to try something new. At this age, they are in identity crisis phase whereby curiosity within themselve is strong, so any visualisation of the act of taking drugs will trigger them to try abusing drug and eventually fall into addiction. The next factor is having a drug addict’s parents or family members. Children associate to partake in drug abuse from the view of drug-addicted parents as parents usually become role model for their children. So, there is a high possibility of a link between addict parents and children. From a different perspective, it could describe the fact that each child with drug-addicted parents and family members is exposed to the risk of drug abuse. The socioeconomic is also one of the factors for teenagers using the illicit drug. Those who are from low-income family are prone to becoming victim of circumstance for drug abuse due to their living disadvantaged condition. They had almost all necessities deficiency in life such as financial sources, education, hygiene, nutrition, employment opportunities, skills, and lack of access to service. Parents pressure towards their children is also becoming a factor of teenager misuse drug. Pressure and expectation being put by the parents on their children had put a lot of stress on their children. They will suffer from lack of confidence and the feeling of unappreciated is suddenly emerged. They will be looking around for friends of the same problem to share with and some of them might be problematic. It turns out that they are getting involved with drug misuse.

There are a few efforts can be made to address the drug abuse issue among teenagers. As for preventive measure, students should at least know the bad consequences of drug abuse; hence school should establish compulsory courses for students to educate them on the negative effect of drugs and substance abuse. One of the approach is by organising a campaign and talks about the danger of taking drug and law enforcement on drug abuser so that students aware of the effects and punishment to be taken on drug abuser. Since teenagers are in the phase of forming identity, their at-peek curiosity can be beneficial if it is put at the right setting like in education. Teenagers should be made aware of the possible impacts of drug addiction, so it will elimate any thinking of misusing drug. Other than that, other ways to reduce the number of drug abuse among teenager, parents should communicate with their children more often. Parents nowadays are busy with other personal interests and working that communication is dreaded and seldom used by parents. This leads to social issue among teenagers. Therefore, despite hectic daily basis, parents should find time to communicate with their children so they feel lovable, get more attention and desire support in facing challenges in life. If the parent is the drug abuser, effort focusing on reducing the exposure and the impact of this behavior on their teenager should be taken. The agencies that are responsible to this matter should take every effort that will curb exposure and access to illicit drugs for teenager whose parents are drug addictors. Drug addiction is a difficult medical problem to treat. In order to tackle the prevalence of drug use among teenager, comprehensive health which adopts the primary care practitioners approach should be taken on teen’s drug addictor. There are thousands of clinics and specially-trained practitioners offer substance abuse treatment for teens drug abuse or addiction. Treatment options for substance abuse implement therapy, counseling, medication and other proven tools designed to retrain an addict to live without drugs. Doctors and treatment specialists have spent decades working on and perfecting their methodologies, and they can help teens struggling with addiction defeat their illness.

Throughout the research, drug abuse among teenager is proven to have a lot of detrimental effect to to be made as self reflection. It has significant impacts on communities and societies, healthcare, and economy. In terms of effects on society, drug abuser is usually threatening public security with crimes like robbery, snatchtheft for the sake of money. From this, we can reflect that drug users often turn to crime so they can obtain increaing amounts of drug t to feed their on-going addiction regardless of anything. They isolate themselves from community and only mix with fellow addicts, drug dealers and criminals. Based on health condition of drug abuser, we can see that the condition keeps deteriorating due to the toxic content in drug. An individual who takes drug will have problem with ability to make voluntary decision as the drug addiction develops brain changes. Consequences of drug abuse for mental health include memory loss, anxiety, depression, mental disorder and other chronic problem for organ is organs damage stroke, cancer, fertility problems, respiratory diseases, gastrointestinal disease. Over dose or prolonged use of drug abuse causes death and it is the ultimate consequence. In economic aspect, we learn that the expenditure associated with the drug abuse is in a huge cost. Government has to spend cost on treatment program, health care budget, alternatives for drug abuse problem, property damage and many more. The compulsory rehabilitation and treatment programs for two years, for identified drug abusers is costing RM3,000 per month for each addict, which translates to a staggering RM300 million annually according to Malaysian Psychiatric Association.

In conclusion, drug abuse among teenager in Malaysia is considered to be number one enemy for social problem as the problem is in increasing trend when we compare to previous year. Most teenagers misuse drug due to peer pressure, curiosity to attempt something, pressure from parents and the parents themselve is drug addictor. In order to cope with drug abuse problem, several resolution and measures has been proposed involving the role of school and parents to for preventive action and healthcare organisation to treat the addiction of drug among teenagers. The negative consequences of drug abuse is not only for the individual, but also for the society as a whole. Young generations who constitute majority portion of the total citizen in our country play an important role in progress and development of our nation. Youth is the time when innovative and creative thoughts and ideas pop up in mind and which shape up the community and the nation we live in. The policies, plans and development works of the nation can best be implemented by youth. The misuse of drug will restrict multiple brain areas that are implicated in many functions such as motivation, learning, inhibitory control, and executive function. In order for Malaysia to be one of the most developed country, there should be no drug abuse issue among its population especially teenager so that a lot of competent leader can lead the county in the future.