Apa Cerita? Any Stories?

Last year in Miri, 2 kids were found lying unconscious after bouts of glue-sniffing near a rubbish dump with cans of tyre glue next to them. If those kids were to survive, it would not be long before they upgrade themselves to using stronger drugs like heroin as well as synthetic drugs when they get older.

Glue addiction are detrimental to health as it could lead to brain damage which could be fatal and even failure of the kidneys and liver. The cause of those devastating effect are simple. Glue contains substances like toluena or trichloroethylene, a type of toxin which affects the brain function as well as the heart. If they are lucky and not dead then they might develop memory loss, psychosis and paralysis. They might as well be dead than to suffer those side-effect and not to mention the agony of their loved ones.

According to a research, most of those drawn to glue-sniffing were children aged 11 and 12 who had yet to even try cigarette smoking and due to their addiction to glue-sniffing, they tend to lose interest in their studies which will lead to skipping schools before getting involved in other unhealthy activities, like stealing. It is said social problems and stress were the main causes of children and even adults adopting glue-sniffing.

Unfortunately, legal action cannot be taken against juveniles for glue-sniffing, unlike those caught for drug addiction, pushing or trafficking. The reason being that glue is not a controlled item and is used in our daily life. Authorities such as police could only bring those caught for glue-sniffing to the stations and then would contact their parents, who would take them home.

Coming back to the children playground, the guards employed by the resident association are powerless in dealing with those kids. They tried chasing away those kids but to no avail. It appears that when "high", they are not afraid of anything and might easily resort to violence if provoked. The only action to take is to call the police (there is a beat less than 100 meters away) to take them away albeit temporarily before sooner or later they'll find another fixing spot.

Dear parents, please monitor your children and do know their activities. Do not put the blame squarely on other people if they are caught doing such bad activities. Spend time with them as frequently as you could. To muslim parents, this is the month where the kids are almost free to roam the streets at night because we are at the mosque praying. Its good to trust them but it never hurts for once in awhile to do spot checks on them.

So this shows that we have so much to do than just arguing about who's the next PM to be or probing why the PM exchanges portfolio with his deputy. Why are the MP's busy flying to Taiwan when they haven't deal with this pressing issues at hand and at times arguing some stupid things in Parliament? If the men in power can't do anything to solve those problems, it is up to us now to get things right. So let's re-adjust our priorities and try to make our country a better place for our kids.