It is perhaps understandable that Lee Lam Thye should come up with a ‘simplistic’ prescription to deal with this serious problem.

This is because, as is generally known, he has either directly or indirectly, been associated with NGO drug rehabilitation programmess in a semi-executive capacity for at least a decade, where even ‘profiles’ of hard-core drug addicts have yet to be provided, let alone effective rehabilitation.

Moreover, if he had been doing his research, he ought to realise that some of us have for some time drawn attention to the possible wider link not only between drug addiction and snatch thefts but also to other social ills such as HIV/Aids as well.

Indeed, the importance and need for radical and comprehensive structural (institutional) reforms from the ‘bottom-up’ to address, and hopefully provide remedies, is now most crucial, considering that the available statistics indicate rapidly increasing numbers of victims of social ills across the board nearly with 80%-90%, estimated to be Malays.

While Tan Sri is to be commended for his concern in this, as well as the varied other social issues and problems he is involved in, with respect, it might be more useful for problem solving if he could also work with other social activists in the area.