PETALING JAYA: Synthetic drugs are carving a trail of destruction through youths in the country, threatening to leave hundreds of thousands of them with lasting brain damage and severe mental disorders, says an anti-drug advocate.
He warned that if the menace is not stamped out with urgency, the repercussions will not just be social but generational.
Malaysian Substance Abuse Council (Masac) secretary-general Raja Azizan Suhaimi described the situation as critical and called for a trained addiction counsellor to be stationed at each school to detect suspected drug users and carry out early intervention.
He claimed schools are now on the front lines of a growing crisis involving synthetic drugs, particularly methamphetamine or syabu.
“Regular use can cause severe brain damage and mental health disorders in as little as a year. Long-term cognitive impairment, psychosis and behavioural changes may be irreversible.
“These are children whose brains are still developing. What is even more worrying is that for every user identified, there are another five users who are out there,” he said.
Raja Azizan warned that the ease of using synthetic drugs today is making the problem far more dangerous than before.
He said vape devices have made drug use more discreet and accessible among schoolchildren, unlike plant-based opioids that were commonly used in the past.
“It is no longer the stereotypical image of drug abuse. With vape devices, it can happen quietly in toilets, in hostels or even during outings. The tools are cheap and easy to obtain.
“We cannot afford to wait until these children, who are our future leaders, end up in rehabilitation centres or suffer permanent mental health conditions.
“Early identification and intervention at schools can save them. Teachers can be trained to become addiction counsellors. This is an urgent necessity.
“If we fail to act decisively now, we risk losing a large fraction of our future generation to this menace,” Raja Azizan told The Star.
He added that drug syndicates are aggressively pushing synthetic drugs because of the lucrative returns.
He said that it is also relatively easier to produce them compared to plant-based drugs.
“Syndicates are targeting younger users to expand their market. The time has come for all relevant agencies, from the Education and Health ministries to enforcement bodies, and the community to come together and fight drug addiction.
“We cannot work in silos or independently,” he said.
Criminologist Datuk P. Sundramoorthy said that illegal drug distribution has moved away from traditional street-level dealing to social media, encrypted messaging apps and even gaming communities.
“These are now informal drug marketplaces where traffickers can operate well beyond the physical monitoring of schools.
“At times, students are recruited by syndicates as micro-distributors within their peer groups, creating decentralised networks that are difficult to detect.
“Over time, this contributes to the normalisation of drug use within youth subcultures, where synthetic substances are seen as tools for recreation or stress relief rather than unlawful behaviour,” he said.
Sundramoorthy said that economic pressures faced by families may also be a factor, as there is a lack of parental supervision in many dual-income households.
He added that based on social control theory, a weaker bond between a parent and child can reduce a child’s internal self-restraint and make him or her more prone to reckless behaviour.
“Ultimately, both schools and parents are confronting a rapidly evolving drug landscape shaped by digital peer influence and organised criminal innovation.
“Addressing this issue requires a coordinated, multistakeholder response involving law enforcement, education systems, families and digital platforms,” said Sundramoorthy.
