Islamic organisations have dismissed the allegation that they are not doing enough to tackle the high rate of drug addiction among Muslims.

They said religious authorities, including politicians from the Muslim-based opposition party PAS, have long cooperated with prison and drug authorities to rehabilitate addicts and reintegrate them back into society.

Furthermore, they added prevention efforts to stop Muslim youths from getting into drugs is part of a holistic programme of addressing the general decline of social values and morals, and is not targetted at the drug problem specifically.

Contacted today, a deputy director in the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) told malaysiakini that the activist who expressed concern that religious authorities were ignoring drug addicts was either misinformed or unaware of their efforts.

Malaysiakini yesterday reported the drug rehabilitation activist, who had requested anonymity, ticking off religious authorities for not doing enough to help drug addicts.

Tuan Ismail Tuan Abdullah, who is in charge of Jakim's Mosque Development Division, said Jakim had long cooperated with prison authorities and the National Drugs Agency (NDA) to provide religious and spiritual counseling to addicts.

No publicity

Most recently, he said Jakim this month launched 'the mosque as a half-way house' programme in Malacca where 200 recovering addicts were 'adopted' by families of the community surrounding the Jamek Mosque at Alor Gajah as part of social reintegration efforts.

"These ex-drug addicts would also be trained in the various functions of mosque operations, undergo religious educational and motivational programmes and taught skills so that they would be 'recognised' and accepted back into society," he added.

Tuan Ismail also said the Selangor Department of Islamic Religious Affairs (Jais) had also worked on similar programmess in cooperation with Jakim.

A search on Jais' website revealed that the department's own 'the mosque as a half-way house' programme had seen the establishement of nine mosques within Selangor as participants in the said programme.

Ismail also said the drug rehabilitation activist's comments may derive from Jakim's failure to see any pressing need to publicise such efforts, as well as the activist's lack of awareness of efforts made toward resolving the problem.

"There have always been these programmes, though in different forms. Why should we be making a big noise about what we are doing? This person is either unaware of what we have been doing all along or has been misinformed," he added.

On the same issue, PAS Youth chief Salahuddin Ayub said the party has always been concerned about the disproportionate involvement of Muslim youths in the drug problem.

He cited instances of two rehabilitation centres set up by PAS religious figures in Kuala Kerai in Kelantan and Sabak Bernam in Selangor to provide religious counselling and training in order to complement other types of treatment that can be found elsewhere.

However, he conceded that in view of the high figures of new drug addicts identified by the government - 1,903 a month since January this year - efforts needed to be intensified by all sectors, including Kelantan, which is one of four states with the highest number of drug addicts.

"I will bring this up with Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat," he said when contacted.

Different roles

Malaysian Muslim Youth Movement (Abim) secretary-general Azizuddin Ahmad said different Islamic groups had different roles and approached drug-prevention efforts differently.

Although Abim would not discount working with the authorities, its prevention efforts were made through its overall campaign to combat the decline in social and moral values in general, he told malaysiakini.

"We are looking at the overall decline in morals. We cannot isolate the drug problem from that. In our programmes, we try to inculcate an understanding of 'life values' and address the early stages before people get addicted," he said.

Last Saturday, a former drug addict turn activist lamented the inaction of Islamic groups in tackling drug problem despite Malays being a majority (65.14%) of drug addicts in the country, followed by the Chinese (13.6%) and Indians (9.4%).

"Why arent' mosques utilised as support groups for the after-treatment of recovering addicts? If you merely highlight the main mosques and the community surrounding each, you have a potentially large community to rally around the project," he said.

In contrast, he added that several of the major churches had Narcotics Anonymous support groups for current and recovering drug addicts meeting at least twice a week.