A crisis of synthetic drug addiction among schoolchildren as young as 13 demands urgent community and family action, say doctors
TODAY’S headlines about students as young as 13 becoming addicted to synthetic drugs should shake every Malaysian parent to the core.
They reveal that tens of thousands of school-going children have already been found using dangerous substances – not in some distant country but in our own classrooms, housing estates and playgrounds. These are not just statistics; they are our sons and daughters, the future of our nation, trying to grow up in a world that has become a minefield of dangerous chemical temptations.
This crisis did not appear overnight. Between 2010 and 2016, more than 131,000 drug addicts were registered with the National Anti-Drug Agency (Nada), including 8,732 children and adolescents aged 19 and below.
Long before synthetic pills and so-called “party drugs” flooded our schools, many young people were already struggling with substance abuse.
We need only recall the 2017 school fire in Kuala Lumpur, which claimed 23 lives and was linked to suspects as young as 11 who were believed to have been under the influence of drugs. For every tragedy that makes the news, countless other children suffer in silence.
As doctors, we do not see these stories as crime reports but as signs of a failing safety net. These are not “bad kids” who simply made poor choices. They are children whose developing brains and circumstances make them especially vulnerable and who were not reached in time with the support they needed.
To understand why teenagers are at such high risk, we must understand the adolescent brain. Imagine a teenager as a high-performance car with a powerful accelerator but brakes that are still under construction. The accelerator is the dopamine-driven reward system, which fuels the pursuit of novelty, excitement and peer approval. The brakes are the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain responsible for judgement, planning and impulse control – which does not fully mature until around the age of 25. In other words, teenagers are biologically primed to take risks long before they are fully equipped to understand or manage the consequences.
In Malaysia, we often add fuel to the fire through intense academic pressure. Picture a Form Four student, exhausted after hours of school and tuition, accepting a pill from a friend to stay awake for a late-night revision session. They may have no idea that certain pills or vape liquids can flood the brain’s reward circuits far more intensely than natural pleasures, literally rewiring the developing brain to crave the next high.
We know from research that the younger someone starts using drugs, the higher the risk of long-term addiction. A moment of experimentation can silently become a lifelong battle. This is why the home environment matters deeply. While our culture places great value on family, we too often mistake being “strict” for being truly protective.
We often equate love with curfews, confiscated phones and stern warnings: “Don’t you dare try drugs.” Yet research and our clinical experience show that what shields adolescents is not fear but a strong, warm connection with at least one trusted adult.
When young people feel seen, heard and loved – even when they make mistakes – they are less likely to seek comfort in drugs or other substances.
We need to move from “Just Say No” to “Just Say Know”. That means having honest, age-appropriate conversations with our teenagers about how substances such as cannabis, ketum, methamphetamine and synthetic drugs hijack the brain.
For parents unsure where to start, one practical tool used by healthcare professionals is the Crafft screening questionnaire. Rather than interrogating their child, parents can gently explore six key questions: Have they ever ridden in a car driven by someone under the influence? Do they use substances to relax or feel better about themselves? Do they use them when alone? Do they use them to forget what happened? Have family or friends urged them to cut down? Have they gotten into trouble because of their substance use?
A “yes” is not a verdict. It is a sign that a youngster needs more support, not more shame.
Schools, too, must transform from academic factories into sanctuaries of early detection and healing. Instead of relying solely on sudden spot checks that terrify students and push the problem underground, we can adopt the Sbirt model used in many countries: screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment. Regular, confidential screening by trained health staff can identify students at risk long before they end up in a police lock-up or hospital ward.
Our disciplinary systems must support recovery, not simply remove “problem students”. Expelling a teenager for drug use may make a school’s statistics look better but it often drives that young person into the very environments where drugs are most accessible.
Around the world, court-linked diversion programmes similar to Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts have shown that when young offenders are channelled into structured rehabilitation with close supervision, they are far more likely to get their lives back on track. Malaysia should explore such models, adapted to our legal and cultural landscape, so that one mistake at 15 does not become a lifelong criminal label.
Beyond homes and schools, we need a truly Malaysian community response. The word penagih carries heavy stigma; many families would rather suffer in silence than seek help.
We must start talking about addiction as a chronic, treatable medical condition – bukan sekadar masalah jenayah, tetapi masalah kesihatan awam.
Our Rukun Tetangga, mosques, suraus, churches and temples can offer the healthy belonging and “spiritual team” that so many teenagers crave.
A teenager who feels grounded in a community, whether through futsal leagues, youth groups or mentoring programmes is less likely to search for belonging at the end of a straw or in a tablet.
We are not starting from zero. The Nada voluntary Cure and Care clinics already provide confidential assessment and treatment aimed at reintegration rather than punishment. But many parents do not know these services exist or fear being judged.
We must normalise the act of seeking help, just as we would for asthma, depression, diabetes or any other non-communicable disease.
Finally, we must rethink where we invest our national resources. Each year, hundreds of millions of ringgit go into policing, prosecuting and incarcerating drug offenders, yet the number of young people falling into addiction continues to rise.
We cannot arrest our way out of this crisis. Every ringgit we shift towards early intervention, school-based mental health support and community programmes is a ringgit spent on keeping a child in school, connected to their family and on the path towards a better future.
The youngsters in the headlines are not faceless delinquents. They are the boys who used to race their bicycles down our lanes and the girls who once lined up eagerly for ice cream after school. They are, literally, our future. Our teenagers may not yet have fully developed brakes in their brains but we do.
As parents, teachers, religious leaders and policymakers, we can choose to be the brakes they have not yet grown. This will enable us to slow them down long enough to think, talk and heal. If we can trade judgement for curiosity, fear for connection and punishment for prevention, then perhaps, one day, the only reason our children make the headlines will be for the dreams they have achieved, not the drugs that almost stole them away.
Prof Dr Thiyagar Nadarajaw is the dean of the Faculty of Medicine, AIMST University and Dr Naveen Nair Gangadaran is a paediatrician at Hospital Tuanku Ja’afar Seremban. Comments: [email protected]
