Latest Anti-drug Campaign Targets Students

KUANTAN, Aug 24 (Bernama) -- Some RM2.5 million in taxpayers' money will be spent on the latest anti-drug campaign targeting secondary school students this year, Deputy Education Minister Datuk Noh Omar said Thursday.
The money will be used to fund various awareness activities including anti-drug seminars, exhibitions, carnivals, advertising and to conduct urine test on randomly selected students.
Noh said the campaign will cover schools, especially urban schools, nationwide.
"The drug menace must be tackled at the school level... It must be nipped in the bud," he said when closing the national level Drug Prevention and Education Carnival 2006 here Wednesday night.
He said students must be guarded and protected from the influence of drugs especially syabu, psychotropic pill and metaphatamine.
Some 8,802 students from 171 schools have taken the urine test so far this year and 32 tested positive.
Last year, some 27,412 students from 847 schools took the urine test and 156 tested positive.
Noh said anti-drug authorities were keen to have more students taking the urine test in the future but said the national anti-drug agency (AADK) needed to use a new and faster testing method to achieve the objective.
There are 10,000 schools in Malaysia with a combined student population of about five million.