By: Hafiz Jasri
The Beginning
Like any other student, he would wake up early in the morning for his morning classes. But before he puts on his shoes, he never missed the opportunity to spend at least ten minutes of his time sitting on the couch, smoking marijuana.
With his white shirt, blue skinny jeans and backpack, who would have thought that a nerd and plain looking student whose also top of his class to be addicted to drugs?
For Aiman, weed is the only gateway from his stressful student life and is also a way to boosts his studies. Marijuana, also known as weed, refers to the dried leaves, flowers, stems and seeds from the cannabis plant that contains the mind-altering chemical. It came with several sides effects both long and short term effects that mostly affect the mind and emotions of its users. This drug is famous among students and professionals alike.
Aiman, an engineering student of a private university located in Bestari Jaya, lived in the university’s hostel and rarely came back to his hometown in the rural part of Kuala Lumpur. A hardworking student, he dream of achieving a dean list status in every semester, a dream he had in mind since his first semester.
Upon entering university life, he met his housemate Zakri, who is in the same faculty but is currently two semesters ahead of him. To him, Zakri is a role model since he had passed two semesters as a dean list student and have a deep experience as a student since he took his foundation in the same university.
“Although student life may look easy, it is actually kind of stressful,” said Aiman.
Stressful daily routine to meet deadlines made Zakri addicted to the weed. The habit can’t be left behind easily since the pressure kept coming.
Being his housemates, Aiman used to see Zakri burning his marijuana through his “Bong”, a special device used to burn the dried leaves and to inhale the smoke. Aiman used to refused Zakri’s persuasion. But seeing him smoke every day while maintaining good grades had made Aiman interested to tried it once.
Since then, it has become a habit and he is addicted to the activities and moreover, he is not the only one who do so. Some of his classmates are drug’s user to and once in a while, they would hang-out together in his hostel to smoke weed together.
He believed that the usage of the “herbs” is not illegal and is beneficial to self-health. According to him, the “high” effect of the weed helps him to focus on his studies since it enhances his thinking ability.
People’s opinion might be differ, possessing marijuana is against the law, with Malaysia having one of the strictest law regarding the substance. Under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, possessing at least 100 grams of it could lead to death sentences.
Getting the Supplies
Being isolated from the modern cities does not mean that Bestari Jaya are left behind in this “business” industries. According to Aiman, every region and district have its own drug’s dealer and middlemen.
With each have their own market to conquer, their operations had to be in discreet to avoid the authorities.
Aiman usually stocks up once a week and instead of dealing with Bestari Jaya’s middlemen, he often dealt with his long-time-dealer back in Wangsa Maju. So once a week, they will meet at designated rendezvous point that usually changed according to the situations.
As he knew that we are making an assignment out of his story, he wanted to shows us how he would get the drugs as long as we promised not to exposed the activities to the authorities.
On Saturday night 15 December 2018, we were told to wait for him at the famous Nasi Lemak stall in Greenwood; Nasi Lemak Ujang. Several minutes after we ordered our beverages, we saw in a distances a car stop by and dropping its passenger from the back seat of the vehicles.
Aiman came out from the vehicle and came straight to us. He acted like nothing happened and enjoyed his foods casually. We were both eager to see how will he make a contact with the middlemen but when we asked him when will he took the drugs, he said he just did.
The driver is the middlemen. His disguise as a Grab driver were perfectly played with no missing details behind like putting a phone showing maps on his dashboards and letting the passenger to sit on the backside of the car. People won’t notice anything odd in this act as it blends in the norms of the society. It was a smooth act played by the veterans of the industry.
Aiman told us that middlemen only have small portions of the drugs. The dealer on the other hand has more portion of the drugs including several other drugs such as Methamphetamine crystalline and tablets form, Psychotropic and Opiate.
For student’s market, they usually supplied marijuana since it is easy to get from the supplier. Most of the product came from Malaysia’s local market and if the supplies are not enough, they will get it from the neighbouring countries such as Thailand and being smuggled across the border that according to Aiman will marked up the prices of the product.
Statistic of The Drugs Usage Among Students
Over the past three years, the number of the drugs user are at a worrying state. According to a 2017 statistic by the National Anti-Drugs Agency (AADK), a total of 1,242 students were tested positive for drugs. But these are the people who they managed to caught, there are still numerous cases that the authorities still have not solved yet.
According to the Student Affair Unit (HEP) in 2018, there were two drug cases involving students in the hostel units. HEP and student’s accommodations units received a report by other students that there were a group of students that used Marijuana and bongs inside of the residence. The students were later expelled and the cases are being handled by the Ijok Police Department.
According to the Head of Kuala Selangor Police Department Suprt. Abdullah, they would received reports regarding drugs user among students every year.
“Last year, we’ve received reports of marijuana cases in the hostel of the university,” he said.
He also stated that the offender had been caught and their police department are still investigating this case further.
Current Situation
Since the news of the student that has been caught are widely spread, Aiman and his friends took a precaution steps to protect themselves from being exposed to the authorities. They no longer invited friends that they just met into their hostel. Upon our visits to his hostel, there is a bong on top of the table that we can see directly once we open the door. It took them several minutes before they would open the door for us.
The Students Accommodations Unit usually make an annual spot check with or without any complaint in order to monitor the student’s activities inside the hostel and to avoid any illegal activities by students. Although this has been done from time to time, Aiman and his friend manage to avoid themselves to be in a huge trouble. Aiman has now became Zakri’s ‘apprentice’ since the latter had graduated last year. With only a semester left, he had become an influence to new students and it has become a trend that cannot be unseen by the authorities. The statistic shown should be higher if there are proper monitoring from above.
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