PETALING JAYA, June 21 \u2013 Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh has reportedly called for the adoption of online therapy and support services to address addiction among young Malaysians.<\/p>\n
She said traditional awareness campaigns urging youth to avoid drugs and other vices have failed to stem addiction, pointing to the persistent rise in such cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many years, the government has been doing the same thing, telling youths \u2018let\u2019s avoid doing this\u2019 or \u2018stay away from that\u2019, but it has not been effective,\u201d she was quoted saying by Free Malaysia Today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need a new approach, which is why I have told my ministry to start providing online support or online assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeoh added that online therapy offers the anonymity and discretion many young people need to seek help, especially for sensitive issues such as pornography addiction.<\/p>\n
This comes as she said research by the Institute for Youth Research Malaysia revealed that addiction \u2013 from substance abuse to sex and pornography \u2013 remains a major issue among youths.<\/p>\n
Yeoh also urged for a \u201csecond chance policy\u201d for youth caught in addiction cycles, warning that a single drug record could derail their future and trap them in the welfare system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we say the youth are the nation\u2019s assets and future workforce, how do we expect them to contribute if one mistake writes off their whole future?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
She said her interactions with clients of the National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK) revealed their desire to recover and lead normal lives without judgment.<\/p>\n
AADK deputy director-general (operations) Khairul Anwar Bachok had previously flagged rising addiction rates among students, citing a spike in cases between 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n
Cases among primary school students increased from 11,611 to 12,755, while lower secondary school figures rose from 36,236 to 37,321.<\/p>\n
The sharpest increase was seen among upper secondary students, with cases jumping from 47,951 to 55,855.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PETALING JAYA, June 21 \u2013 Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh has reportedly called for the adoption of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[10936,10935,210,517,10937,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-9896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-addiction-treatment","9":"tag-hannah-yeoh","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-online-therapy","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}