About 500 youths and students rallied Tuesday to honor the International Day Against Drugs. Organized by the National Authority for Combating Drugs, they marched through Phnom Penh sporting T-shirts and carrying signs that advertised an aversion to illicit drugs.
Teng Savong, director of the drug authority, lamented the steady increase of drug use in Cambodia since the 1990s and cited police busts as evidence of drug prevalence.
“In the year 2000, we confiscated 50,000 pills of amphetamine, and in the year 2001 our anti-drug police department confiscated 70,000 pills of amphetamines, and in 2002 we have confiscated 140,000 pills, and in 2003—only in the first six months—we have confiscated 110,000 amphetamines, so we concluded the number of drug users is increasing,” he told the crowd gathered at Wat Phnom.
While those figures could simply mean that the police effort has improved, a UN report released in April said the country’s development efforts are being seriously hindered by a growing drug problem—largely fueled by a methamphetamine boom and the steady trafficking of heroin down the Mekong River.
Bengt Juhlin of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime also weighed in at Thursday’s rally.
“If we look back just a few years, we would see a fortunate Cambodia that was one of the few countries, or actually the only country in the region, that did not have a significant drug abuse problem. This situation is, however, now rapidly changing, and more and more of our young people are trapped in drug abuse by the promises of a better and happier life by unscrupulous drug pushers.”
He went on to say that drug addiction eventually will lead to a graduation in consumption methods, where people who once orally ingested or smoked methamphetamines soon move to injecting them with needles, which encourages the spread of HIV and AIDS—as other nations have witnessed.
“I never use drugs for my work, although I do earn money by strength,” said Ham Sokchea, a 24-year-old cyclo driver at the rally.
“I am afraid of drug addiction. I know drug use affects our health and destroys our family’s living conditions,” he added.
