VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

In recent months, arrests of drug abusers and drug dealers in Indonesia have been reported more intensively. The circulation of narcotics in this country is increasingly troublesome. Indonesia is in a drug emergency.

Currently, there is law No. 35/2009 which regulates the narcotics and psychotropic. But the law is considered irrelevant to the current situation of emergency drug in Indonesia. Criminalizing drug users, as stipulated in the law, is less appropriate, as it reduces the success of healing users, and it also leading to overcrowding the penitentiaries.

Director of the Legal Aid Society, Ricky Gunawan argues that one solution is to de-criminalize drug users, as already practiced by Portugal and Slovakia. In both countries, the problem of drug crime can be drastically reduced based on the policy. The use of narcotics should be treated as a health issue, not a legal issue.

Former Director of BNN Enforcement, Benny Jozua Mamoto views that based on the survey of BNN, the success of law enforcers to reveal the smuggling of drugs is only about 10%. He also assessed that the handling of drug crimes should involve all related stakeholders, including those who carry out ongoing and massive prevention and rehabilitation efforts.

On November 2nd, 2017 in Jakarta, the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) and several civil institutions organized a media briefing on the launch of a legal review on 'Strengthening the Revision of Indonesian Narcotics Act'. This review is an input to the revision of the law narcotics and regulations of civil society organizations, such as ICJR, Rumah Cemara, Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, and the network of civilian institution, Coalition 35/2009.

There are three main recommendations of the review of the revision of the narcotics law. The first point is the user's decriminalization; clear restrictions on identifying users and drug addicts; second one is strengthening rehabilitation centers to be opened for users and the addicted and the third point is resolving fair trial issues in criminal justice.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Daily Judicial Monitoring Society of Indonesia, Choky Riska Ramadhan said that his side and a number of non-governmental organizations, such as the Community Legal Aid Institute and the Indonesian Association of Victims of Violence, are making a draft academic revision of the narcotics law. One important point is that drug users need to be rehabilitated medically, not imprisoned. This proposal is supported by Head of Public Relations of the Directorate General of Corrections, Ade Kusnanto. It’s necessary to note that rehabilitation should be accompanied with medical, psychological, and social examination by the assessment team.

All parties really want drug cases in Indonesia to be overcome with coordination of various related agencies. The House of Representatives -DPR urged the government to finalize the academic script and draft revision of the narcotics law. Deputy Speaker of the DPR, Taufik Kurniawan even said that if the government does not immediately complete and submit it, the DPR is ready to take over the discussion of the revision of the narcotics law to suggest the initiative of the DPR.

The viewpoint of the Indonesian nation that declares that war on narcotics abuse is obvious. But there must be a stricter law. If the law No. 35/2009 is not relevant anymore, The DPR has to immediately revise it to accommodate various problems of narcotics faced by Indonesia.