Eye-Test Machine To Detect Addict Students

SHAH ALAM, April 2 (Bernama) -- A pioneer project using an eye-test machine to detect drug abuse among students will be carried out in a school in Kuala Lumpur next month to determine effectiveness of the method.
Deputy Education Minister Datuk Noh Omar said the machine, costing about RM200,000 a unit, could detect within 24 hours the type of drugs used.
He said the machine would enable more students to be tested for drug abuse and students identified to be trying with drugs could be sent for counselling and rehabilitation.
"Not that we want to find students to send them to rehabilitation centres but to counsel and rehabilitate them," he told a press conference held in conjunction with a dinner hosted by Pengasih Selangor here.
He said tests using the eye-test machine were aimed at rehabilitating student addicts instead of penalising them.
Students would be required to go for urine tests only if legal action was to be taken against them, he said.
Noh said some parents were unhappy with the random urine tests conducted in schools and the method was also costly, about RM9 per student.
Last year, urine tests were conducted on some 8,000 secondary school students. There are about three million secondary school students in the country.
According to media reports, 374 students were tested positive for drugs last year and this year, 65 students have been identified to be on drugs.