Drug offenses expose Indonesia’s problems

(printed in Inside Indonesia but I don’t know when….. google gagal!)
by Laine Berman
For the past few years a great many articles have appeared on Indonesia’s drug ‘culture’ and the disastrous impact it has on youth. Blame is thrown about at all sides but little has yet appeared to link drug use among teens to the police, the court system, and families themselves. Youths caught in this system of denial, corruption and abuse are more likely than not to return to drugs and crime because it provides no ‘healing’ – only abuse, resentment, and intense hatred toward that system. I argue that families of drug users themselves have a major responsibility in perpetuating this cycle of drug abuse.
On an afternoon in June 2005 in Yogyakarta, four young men that I knew well were arrested for drug offenses. One was a small time dealer…