The Papua Legislative Council is deliberating a regulation that would see microchips implanted in people living with HIV/AIDS so authorities could monitor their actions.

According to Article 35 of the regulation on healthcare in the province, to supervise and control people with HIV/AIDS a "detection device is needed to monitor the movements and sexual activities of people with HIV/AIDS".

The article has been condemned by activists and government officials in the province as a gross violation of rights.

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Will Indonesia Legalise Cannabis?

A study by Indonesia's National Narcotics Agency has sparked a squabble in the world's largest Muslim nation, after it suggested the drug might be useful in the alternative fuel or agriculture industries, and the government should consider legalising its use.

Indonesia's vice president Jusuf Kalla has also suggested it is acceptable to use cannabis for cooking.

"To add up in a curry or soup recipes, that's common," Kalla said last week.

"Not to get high, but merely for food seasonings.

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Indonesia's current attitudes toward drugs does not reflect sound knowledge concerning the problem. The huge percentage of prisoners convicted on drugs charges in our prisons suggests that the use of drugs in this country is much more widespread than corruption.

Tobacco is not considered a drug here and cigarette companies advertise aggressively using images of sports and music to sell their products. The government also reaps a large income through the taxation of tobacco.

Alcohol, being prohibited under most interpretations of Islam, has a more definite position. Apart from being heavily taxed, the sale of alcohol is strictly regulated. However, the many news stories of police confiscating home-brew in local papers indicate that alcohol consumption, although underground, is widespread.

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We were shocked by reports that the Indonesian National Institute for Drug Abuse (Inida) would study the possibility of legalizing the use of marijuana (The Jakarta Post, June 2, 2007). Other papers quoted Inida as proposing that dried marijuana be legalized.

In some literature (West, 1998, and Rothenberg, 2000), hemp and marijuana are not differentiated. That's why many people can not be convinced that hemp actually greatly benefits our environment and human life.

Some differences between marijuana and hemp are as follow:

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Indonesia has asked the international community to respect a court's decision to impose the death penalty on several foreign citizens found guilty of what was described as one of the biggest ecstasy plants in Southeast Asia.

"We want to stress that this is part of our sovereignty. We ask other countries to respect our legal system, including if their citizens are sentenced to death because of their crimes," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kristiarto Soeryo Legowo told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

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Judges Feared Methods Taught to Inmates

JAKARTA -- Indonesia's Supreme Court converted jail terms given to seven foreigners in a drug case to death sentences after the defendants appealed against the length of their prison terms.

The judges yesterday ruled the drug operation, involving a plant capable of making a million tablets of the amphetamine known as ecstasy a week, was part of an international organized-crime operation, court spokes-man Joko Sarwoko said.

Dutch national Nicolaas Garnick and Frenchman Serge Areski Atlaoui had previously been sentenced by lower courts to life in prison.

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I write in reference to a letter by Gene Netto (Drugs in schools, The Jakarta Post, April 16). Netto, please, wake up! Your naivete and ignorance of our children and schools is pitiful.

Sadly, there are drug sellers that prey on our children.

Many schoolchildren know where to find them and they know where to find our schoolchildren. Equally ignorantly, Netto states, "How about random urine testing in schools where there is a suspicion of drug use?", as if that is going to solve the problem!

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A total of 81,702 students used illegal drugs in 2006 (The Jakarta Post, April 11). The National Narcotics Agency (BNN) reports that 8,449 of those drug users were elementary school students, and those are the ones we know about. With the assumption that those who were detected represent the tip of the iceberg, just how many children in this country are taking illegal drugs?

First, where did they get the money from? I'm assuming that illegal drugs are not that cheap. Second, where did they get the drugs from? Are drug dealers standing outside schools beside the snack vendors? ("Meatballs, ice cream, ecstasy!") Are other kids selling the drugs inside the schools? How? Considering the small size of most schools and the large number of students, it's not as though there are many private places for child drug dealers to hide.

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Despite a nationwide anti-drug drive, the country continues to see more cases of drug use by schoolchildren, a top anti-drugs campaigner said Tuesday.

"The number of illegal drug users continues to increase annually, with 81,702 of them students of elementary, junior high and senior high schools," head of the Narcotics Abuse Prevention Center at the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) Insp. Gen. Mudji Waluyo, said as quoted by Antara, in Samarinda, East Kalimantan.

He was referring to 2006 data collected by the agency across the country.

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The owner of an Indonesian restaurant in Melbourne was a street child who used to sing and play his guitar on public buses in Jakarta.

He is an elementary school dropout but his hard work has made him a successful entrepreneur.

That story was told by Samsuridjal Djauzi, an internist and immunologist, in his book titled Talks with Youths, which he distributes to his young patients and participants in his life skill training program.

Samsuridjal, 62, has great concern for the fate of the more than 500,000 young people in the country who are involved in drug use, with many contracting HIV.

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Prevention of HIV/AIDS in penitentiaries across the country has been hampered by a shortage of medical workers and the prevalence of injection-drug users in prisons.

Head of the drug abuse supervision division of the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, Sihabuddin, said the limited number of medical workers in prisons impeded HIV/AIDS prevention, despite the availability of mini labs in some prisons to conduct blood tests.

He said a provisional solution to the problem was to forge partnerships with nearby hospitals and community health centers. "At least it could alleviate the problem," Sihabuddin said at the four-day National HIV/AIDS Meeting in Surabaya, East Java, last week.

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SCHAPELLE Corby has vowed she will not have sex until she is released from jail, says her ghost writer Kathryn Bonella.

The vow of chastity will make Corby 47 years old before she is prepared to have a sexual encounter.

Bonella said Corby could not stand having sex in the squalid conditions of Bali's Kerobokan jail where she is serving a 20-year sentence for trying to import marijuana.

The author, formerly a producer with the current affairs program 60 Minutes, spent a year in Bali visiting Corby to put a book together.

Cynical about Corby's claim of innocence when sent to cover the story with journalist Liz Hayes in 2004, Bonella says she was soon convinced Corby was not guilty.

[end]

SERANG: Despite its high number of drug-related convicts, Banten does not have special narcotics prisons, an official said Monday.

As of October, 2,700 people were incarcerated for drug-related crimes this year, said Siswadi, the head of the narcotics unit at the provincial justice and human rights department.

There are 6,000 people imprisoned in Banten.

Banten ranks third after Jakarta and East Java in terms of the number of drug-related offenses handled by the department.

In Tangerang Women's Penitentiary in Banten, for instance, 200 of its 350 convicts are doing time for drugs, he said as quoted by Antara.

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The debate over capital punishment has heated up again following the executions of Fabianus Tibo, Marinus Riwu and Dominggus da Silva. Pro-democracy and human rights groups staged protests in Jakarta denouncing the executions, and unrest broke out in East Nusa Tenggara. The Jakarta Post asked people about the issue.

Wahyu Wijayanto, 24, is a civil servant at the National Development Planning Board. He rents a house on Jl. Surabaya, Central Jakarta:

There is no reason why I should not agree with capital punishment. Our legal system allows it as a penalty for those who have committed major crimes, such as genocide and torture.

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The recent seizure of 955 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, believed to have been smuggled into Indonesia by boat, has raised questions about the monitoring of the archipelago's offshore and coastal areas.

Five national security institutions -- the Navy, the Water Police and Port Police, the offshore and coast guard unit (KPLP) at the Transportation Ministry, customs and the immigration office -- are responsible for the security of the country's waters and coastline.

"Unfortunately, there is a lack of coordination among the institutions ... Each of us works according to our own priorities," KPLP director Soeharto told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

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Schapelle Corby's legal team launched her final court appeal today, pinning their hopes on what they call "new" evidence that Australian authorities last year told them did not exist.

The convicted drug smuggler fronted Bali's Denpasar District Court today as her legal team presented a letter they said could lead to evidence proving she was the victim of a drug ring operating at Australian airports.

Defence lawyer Erwin Siregar said the letter from Australian Justice Minister Chris Ellison confirmed all security cameras were operating in Sydney Airport's baggage handling area the day Corby flew out for Bali.

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CONVICTED drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has been given 10 days to produce closed circuit television footage from Sydney airport, which her lawyers hope will overturn her conviction for importing 4.1 kg of marijuana to Indonesia.

The Gold Coast beauty student appeared in Denpasar District court today for the first time since being sentenced to 20 years' jail on May 27 last year.

She was launching a judicial review of her case, which after being heard in Bali will be considered by the Indonesian Supreme Court in Jakarta.

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THEY are in many ways a throwback to their parents' era, often either saving themselves until marriage or having few sexual partners.

But whereas Indonesia's teenagers may be shunning their Western peers' interest in sex, they are taking up drug use with an increasing passion, from Jakarta rich kids to those in the poorer outlying areas across Java, Kalimantan and South Sulawesi.

It is injecting drug use that is fuelling Indonesia's HIV epidemic, and new modelling obtained by the Herald suggests that if prevention efforts are not stepped up, the country could be facing 2 million HIV infections by 2025.

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If we are to liken drug addicts to broken cars that need fixing by an auto repair shop, it is clear that parents who neglect them do not appreciate fully that these cars break down because the driver -- in this case, the parents -- do not understand how to drive and maintain the car so it operates well.

They just figure, if the car breaks down, they only need to take it to the auto repair shop, not bothering to learn why and how the car broke down, and how to avoid another breakdown in the future. The drivers are not interested in learning, and the car is the one at fault. A broken car let loose in full gear without a driver can destroy everything in its path. So can addicts.

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JAKARTA: A group of doctors marked the International Day Against Drug Abuse here Tuesday by establishing Indonesian Society of Addiction Medicine (Indosam) to help promote services in fighting drug addiction.

The group hoped to improve drug counseling services and disseminate information on harmful addictions to the public.

Psychiatrist Al Bachri Husin, who heads the group, said drug users needed more help to end their addictions.

"We also have to handle their emotional instability, even after they stop using drugs," he said.

Data from the National Narcotics Agency estimates that 3.2 million people, about 1.5 percent of the population, consumed illegal drugs in 2003.

[end]