National Narcotics Agency (BNN) officials arrange evidence that will be exhibited at the BNN office in Jakarta, Thursday (27/7). The BNN has arrested a member of an international drug network and seized 284 kilograms of crystal meth hidden inside a seeding machine and a van.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Several types of new drugs are currently circulating unchecked in Indonesia. Regulations and legal instruments are losing rapidly against the innovation of new psychoactive substances. The government needs to soon ban the distribution of drugs and all of derivatives based on chemical substance.
The World Drug Report says there are 644 types of new psychoactive substances (NPS), around 53 of which are distributed in Indonesia. However, only 40 types are mentioned in Law No. 35/2009 on Narcotics.
There has been as yet no breakthrough to accelerate the process of adding the NPS to the list of drugs in the narcotics law, so that their distribution can be legally prosecuted. The Health Ministry still refers to the drug, and not the chemical component of substances.
The delayed regulation has made it so that NPS can be distributed freely in Indonesia, untouched by the law. Examples of NPS widely known among the public is gorilla tobacco (cannabinoid derivative), which is traded through social media, blue sapphire and methylone. The government’s late response in dealing with NPS was revealed when a celebrity was caught consuming methylonein 2013.
At that time, NPS were not categorized as narcotics, so the celebrity could not be charged because the substance was not listed as an illicit drug under the narcotics law. There have been no drug cases involving methylone so no comparable evidence exists. “However, in 2013, when I Wayan Purwo was distributing methylone in West Nusa Tenggara, the judges listened to the testimony of expert witnesses and sentenced him to 14 years in jail,” said National Narcotics Agency (BNN) pharmaceutical expert Mufti Djusman.
This shows that law enforcers have been indecisive in determining whether or not a substance was psychoactive, because itmust have scientific proof. It took Health Ministry a year to examine and discuss methylone before the substance was added to the list of narcotics.
Information from the New Psychoactive Substances Alert System developed by the BNN, detailed regulation related to the addition of appendices on the narcotics law was stipulated in Health Minister Regulation No. 2/2017 issued in January. The problem is, more NPShave emerged.
In the case of artist Z, who smuggled 26,000 ecstasy pills in 1996, it was interpreted as an ordinary drug case. But, through scientific pharmaceutical tests, the pills were proven to be amphetamine derivatives or composition. Although at that time the substance was not regulated by law, the panel of judges was of the opinion that the pills were psychotropic, and Z was sentenced to four years in jail.
The case served as a precedent of jurisprudence to try a number of NPS cases. However, the fact is that new NPS emergebut law enforcers find it difficult to seize them, as they are not yet on the narcotics list.
“The BNN, the Health Ministry, the Law and Human Rights Ministry, the National Police and the Indonesian Military need to sit down together to classify narcotics that are harmful to citizens,” Mufti said.
Harmful
NPS, with all its varied derivatives, are harmful narcotics because they damage neurotransmitters and make users depressed, suffer from sleep deprivation and paranoid. NPS also quickens the heart rate, triggering heart attacks.
NPS are distributed with the promise that it can calm anxiety and boost energy, so consumers are able to perform activities. The fact is that components in NPS could disrupt the digestive system. The illusion that their energy is heightened makes users lose their appetite for food and drink. Gradually, their digestive organs are damaged.
Kristin, a chemical pharmacy researcher who helps the BNN in testing narcotics and psychotropics, said the delayed issuance of regulations to tackle NPS was related to how the government determined whether a substance was NPS or not. Japan, a country that is flooded with cannabinoids and cathinones, like Indonesia, has opted to use chemical structures to classify each new substance entering the country.
“By referring to its chemical structure, every narcotic or psychotropic entering Japan becomes an object of existing regulations, even though it is a new substance,” she said.
Follow Japan
Indonesia could follow the system in Japan, which bans the distribution of narcotics and all derivatives based on the chemical structure.
For example, cathinone, the source of methylone, is banned in Japan. All products containing cathinone, even ifthe chemical structure is engineered or it is replaced with another substance, are banned from distribution.
“The exception is if medical research proves the cathinone derivative is useful as medicine. Yet, its distribution should still be closely monitored and requires a prescription from a physician,” Kristin said. Technological and scientific developments have driven chemical experts to be involved in the drug business, because each addictive substance has a high selling price. “They develop NPS by modifying the chemical structure,” Mufti said.
One example is Flakka, which has the chemical structure of an MDPV (methylenedioxypyrovalerone) and is classified as a grade 1 psychotropic that causes addiction.
So is gorilla tobacco, a derivative from the addictive substance AB Pinaca, or synthetic cannabis. Today, 44 types of AB Pinaca variants exist in the world. Mufti has been instructed by the BNN to include gorilla tobacco as a grade 1 drug because of its many derivatives.
“The worst effect of consuming psychotropic drugs is excessive paranoia that causes users to behave recklessly. The substance affects serotonin and dopamine in the brain of people who are needed to develop national character. The younger generation that consumes psychotropics will not be productive because their neurons are damaged. This is harmful to the nation,” Mufti said.
