The government is intimidating the public by demonizing pubs and Ecstasy users as part of its anti-drug campaign, critics said yesterday.
"The campaign to wipe out drugs will never succeed if the government only tries to accomplish the goal through intimidating the public by exaggerating the negative effects of drug use or demonizing pubs and young people," Huang Sun-chuan (黃孫權), chief editor of POTS (破報), an alternative weekly newspaper, said yesterday.
"Young people think government authorities treat them like idiots, so they won't listen to what the government has to say," Huang said.
The newspaper editor made the comments yesterday at a forum held to discuss the recent crackdown on Ecstasy users at local pubs. PFP lawmaker Kao Ming-chien (高明見) held the public hearing yesterday to talk about ecstasy and how the government should respond to the problem.
Doctors, government officials, artists and volunteers from NGOs also participated in the discussion.
Theatrical artist Wang Mo-lin (
"[Government officials] should stop scaring the public with their pedantic words and teachings," Wang said. "It's time for them to do some serious field research in an effort to understand how and why youngsters use drugs."
Wang also said that the government should provide enough information about Ecstasy so that young people could decide whether or not to take it themselves.
But Huang Long-cheng (黃隆正), a psychiatrist at Taiwan University Hospital, expressed doubts that young people were equipped to make the right choice on their own.
"I wonder whether young people, especially today's drug users, have the ability to make a choice that will not result in damage to their health," Huang said, adding that ecstasy leaves irreversible damage to a user's brain neurons.
Huang said taking ecstasy results in anxiety, depression, cardiovascular diseases, insomnia or allergic reactions.
Yu Ming-Tsan (
"Not knowing what you have taken into your body is the most dangerous thing about taking Ecstasy," he said.
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