It may come as a surprise that 59 Felda settlers aged between 18-50 have admitted drug abuse.

In actual fact, this is a serious well-known problem the Felda management has been aware of for many years as can be confirmed by the police authorities around the land schemes.

More importantly, this problem was invariably highlighted in reports on Felda settlements within the Johor/Pahang Tenggara Regional Master Plans when I was the Malaysian government’s Social Development Consultant pointing out that drug abuse was acting as a serious constraint to Felda, especially in achieving its social goals and objectives.

There were, of course, various causal factors contributing to this problem but it was possible to focus more specifically on this dimension during my assignment as the UNDP Social Impact Assessment Consultant on Felda (2001/2).

One of the reasons was the lack of involvement by the settlers in the more important decision- making activities so that a sense of power alienation was clearly manifested in those aspects of life that mattered.

This was especially evident among the younger settlers whom seemed to express their frustration in being almost totally sidelined by indulging in drug abuse.

Therefore it is not surprising that the police report (as above) confirms that Felda settlers as young as 18 including women were involved in drug abuse, and this was, in fact, what my own report highlighted.

My recommendations involved, inter alia, specific measures for settler development to be implemented within and across the board strategy of 'bottom-top' involvement in decision- making and in the implementation of policies.

Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, the recommendations while fully endorsed by the UNDP were never implemented by Felda.