‘Prevention of drug abuse begins at home’
KUCHING: A seminar on ‘Community Empowerment’ was held in the city for the first time yesterday.
The seminar to give awareness of society’s role in curbing drug problems can act as a platform for early prevention of drug abuse at grassroots level.
Deputy director of State National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK), Kartina Ujin said prevention of drug abuse began at community level, especially at home.
“Through programmes like this, society is able to identify and detect drug issues in their community, and we will be able to find out the number of drug addicts living in an area,” she said.
She was speaking at the twoday seminar which started yesterday in conjunction with the ‘ Perangi Dadah Habis- Habisan 2017’ campaign at Kampung Gita multipurpose hall. The event saw around 100 participants comprising youths, community leaders, educators, enforcers and parents.
AADK suggested that a community implement an internal level of control and management initiative.
Furthermore, such initiative would be able to channel information to relevant agencies including AADK and the police.
“This will enable a community to detect and receive complaints on drug issues to help AADK and the police fight the drug menace before forwarding them to a higher level,” she explained, adding that everyone within a community played a role in fighting the menace.
She called on the people to instil the spirit of togetherness to work with the authority to ensure the drug menace could be curbed.