ON DISPLAY: The assortment of 395,00 tablets of Erimin 5 in 20 boxes seized from a shoplot on Tuesday
THE trend is changing among drug users these days with the demand for Erimin 5 pills overtaking that of syabu.
This was what Federal Narcotics Crime Investigation Department discovered recently following a spike in demand and seizures of the psychotropic pills over the past few years.
Its director, Datuk Noor Rashid Ibrahim, said the intelligence unit monitoring the changing trend of consumption among drug users concluded that several aspects, such as economic, availability, and health, were the reasons behind the shift.
"Last year, the raids and seizures were on syabu processing labs. This year, the trend changed. We busted more syndicates linked with the smuggling of Erimin 5 pills and the increase is quite significant," he said.
In the first half of the year, police seized 4,115,694 Erimin 5 pills worth RM80 million compared with 87,012 Erimin 5 pills seized last year and 2,016,183 pills in 2010.
The most recent seizure came on Tuesday when police raided a shoplot at Taman Damai Utama, Puchong, and seized 20 boxes containing 395,000 tablets of Erimin 5 pills worth RM7.9 million.
"We believe the premise was used as a storage facility," Noor Rashid said.
On the changing trend, he said users preferred to take the pills, also dubbed as 'Happy 5', because the selling price was more affordable compared to syabu, also known as 'ice' or 'meth'.
"One pill is only RM20, compared with syabu now costing more than RM100 for a few grams," he said.
Noor Rashid said Erimin 5 pills were easily available and popular among party-goers.
"Syabu is not so easily available," he said.
Noor Rashid said users preferred the pills as it gave them a mild feeling of ‘high’ compared with syabu.