MACHANG: The emergence of synthetic drugs that can drastically alter users' behaviour, making them appear like "zombies", is a growing concern, Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said.
He said there had been cases of people killing their spouses, parents and friends, with drug use showing a clear correlation with such violent incidents.
"If we look at these cases, they are closely linked to drug consumption," he told reporters.
Saifuddin said drug use patterns varied by region, with synthetic drugs more prevalent on the east coast, while drug abuse on the west coast involved a mixture of substances.
However, he said synthetic drug use remained high nationwide, partly because the substances were more easily accessible.
He said the National Anti-Drug Agency (Nada) had three main functions: education and prevention, enforcement, and rehabilitation at its treatment centres.
On the 224 hotspots for undocumented migrants identified nationwide by the Immigration Department, Saifuddin said the locations had been mapped using data gathered through ongoing enforcement raids.
The data enabled the department to identify areas where foreigners frequently lived, stayed or gathered.
He said enforcement operations at these locations generally uncovered four categories of foreigners.
They comprised those who entered the country without travel or immigration documents, those whose passes had expired, those with valid passes, including work or student passes, who had misused them, and those classified as refugees.
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