Recently designer drugs are produced more quickly and in large numbers. These drugs are usually produced by modifying the molecular structure of illegal substances. These drugs’ products have similar effects and are able to escape from supervision while the manufacturing instruction can be accessed through the Internet. In Europe as many as 16 new designer drugs have been controlled, whereas in Japan this figure reached to 51.
"Given the health risks from the designer drug, International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has urged governments to adopt measures to control the manufacture, trafficking and abuse of designer drugs," said Dr. Sri Suryawati at the UGM Faculty of Medicine, Thursday (3/3), responding to Designer Drugs as a new threat.
As Second Vice President and Chair of Standing Committee on estimates INCB, Sri Suryawati also urged the government to prioritize the prevention of corruption. Because in the view of the INCB, corruption becomes one of the factors that facilitate the occurrence of drug trafficking. "It's not a secret, that the big advantage obtained from the narcotics market often far exceeds the financial resources of the state," she explained.
According to Sri Suryawati, in many cases criminal organizations along with drug-trafficking empire become a political force with similar strength and authority to the official institutions. This could happen because institutions or officials who should have the authority to control and suppress drug trafficking has been weakened by corruption. "Not infrequently, police and law enforcement officers often face intense pressure from organized crime while running the task to stop drug trafficking," she said.
How ironic, because the legal narcotics and psychotropic substances for medical needs, in fact, are not available in the entire world. Records show that more than 80% of the population have little or even no access at all to the -analgesics drugs. "If 90% of drugs circulating in the market are consumed by Western countries, then many countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas would have little access to them, or even no access at all, whereas they need the narcotic drugs for medical purposes," she said.
Besides the lack of education among the medical profession, Suryawati blamed regulatory hurdles to be one of the factors that cause some states have difficulty in obtaining narcotic drugs for medical purposes. Another obstacle is the distribution and there is no comprehensive health policy. "Because of these, the INCB urged the government to take steps by collecting statistical data about the medical needs for narcotic drugs, providing rules of distribution to patients and improving training for health service staff," said the lecturer of Faculty of Medicine.