YOUTH COUNCIL PLANS TO HELP IDENTIFY DRUG USERS

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Youth Council will train para counsellors to
help leaders of youth clubs identify drug users among their members.

Council president Saifuddin Abdullah said about 90% of the 8,000 youth
clubs in the country did not have specific programmes to combat drug abuse.

"The message that youths should stay away from drugs comes up only once in
a while in speeches or motivation seminars.

"This is all very general and focused only on education and prevention
despite the fact that drug abuse and Ecstasy pills are the biggest scourge
affecting youths today.

"These clubs should be more involved by coming up with specific programmes
to not only prevent drug abuse but to help identify users in their midst,''
he told reporters after attending the Malaysian Youth Movement annual
general meeting here yesterday.

Saifuddin said the council had launched a comprehensive drug prevention
programme on June 26 which provided equal emphasis to intervention,
rehabilitation and re-assimilation.

He said that, for example, youth leaders could be trained to "intervene''
by looking out for behaviour like smoking or hanging out only with certain
groups of friends and at certain places.

"In the same way, youth clubs should play a role in helping to assimilate
former drug addicts into society, as presently, 70% of drug abusers are
relapse cases,'' he added.

Saifuddin said the council had started training 80 such para counsellors
with the help of Pengasih, the association of former drug addicts.

"We hope these counsellors can then act as facilitators for youth leaders
at the grassroots level,'' he said.

Saifuddin added that the training would take about four months.

On Ecstasy pills, Saifuddin said that the scourge was not only limited to
the Chinese youth community but had started to spread to the other races.

"It has become a national agenda for us.

"That's why we have to start acting now,'' he said.