411 secondary school students tested positive for drugs

FOUR hundred and eleven secondary school students throughout the country have screened positive for drugs in the first two months of this year, the Dewan Rakyat was told yesterday.

Deputy EducationMinister II Datuk Chong Sin Woon said from the total, 403 cases were detected through urine tests conducted by the National Anti-Drugs Agency (AADK) while eight cases involved arrests by the Royal Malaysian Police ( PDRM).

“Most of the drug cases took place outside of the school...but once we have identified the highrisk groups, we will carry out urine screening with AADK in the schools.”

“If a student is found positive, we will conduct a rehabilitation programme for three months with AADK and we will carry out followup later. If the student is found positive again, we will enforce discipline by consensus via a committee at District Education Office level,” he said.

He was replying to a supplementary question by Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim ( BN-Baling) who wanted to know the measures taken by the government to overcome the problem of drug usage among school students.

Chong said the cooperation and support of all parties was necessary in the eradication of drug usage among school students.

To the original question by Abdul Azeez who wanted to know the statistics of students expelled from schools from 2014 to 2016, Chong said the decision to expel a student was the final alternative taken by the school against students with disciplinary problems. — Bernama