PETALING JAYA: Federal police are calling for changes to the law on drug trafficking so that possession of 15gm of syabu will be regarded as trafficking, and thus qualify for the death sentence.
Bukit Aman narcotics criminal investigation department director Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay said drug addicts previously used heroin widely but now it was syabu and ecstasy pills that were commonly used.
“Earlier, for heroin, 15gm mandated the death sentence but for syabu and ecstasy pills it was 50gm. So, we want the weight for syabu to be reduced to 15gm,” he said today, according to Bernama.
The Dangerous Drugs Act says that anyone found to have 15gm or more of heroin or morphine is deemed to be trafficking in the drug, for which the penalty is death.
The law also sets out different weights for various drugs, such as 40gm of cocaine, 50gm of amphetamine, and 200gm of cannabis, the possession of which qualifies as trafficking.
Ayob Khan said the proposal on changing the qualifying weight had been brought to the home ministry before being submitted to the Attorney-General’s Chambers for thorough scrutiny.
He said his department had listed more than 60 banned chemicals used to produce drugs such as syabu, ketamine, yaba and kuda pills.
However, in other countries, more than 900 chemicals had been banned.
Ayob Khan said police would beef up control at the country’s borders to curb the increase in ganja smuggling from Thailand following the Thai government’s decision to allow its citizens to plant marijuana.
“Indeed, this decision by Thailand has caused a ‘frenzy’ on our part. Maybe smugglers will be emboldened to move more cannabis into this country. Yesterday alone, 860kg of cannabis smuggled in from Thailand, were confiscated,” he said.
He said the government’s decison to abolish mandatory death sentences would not have a negative impact on police efforts to fight drug trafficking.
He said his department would change its strategy to detect drug syndicate leaders with the cooperation of enforcement agencies.