Add Category
Updated
Twelve years after Schapelle Corby was convicted of importing marijuana to Indonesia, the country's tough narcotics laws haven't dented the drugs market in Bali.
The nation's anti-drugs body, the National Narcotics Board, says tourists are particularly vulnerable to Indonesia's drug syndicates.
Much harder substances than marijuana are sold on the street, and dealers boast of their connections to police.
Being offered drugs in Kuta's tourist strip
On Kuta's tourist strip, Bali's drug dealers work the crowd in gangs of five or six people.
Finding a deal is as simple as making eye contact. I do that — and the lookout approaches.
"What you got?" I ask.
"Cocaine," he replies before taking me around the corner, on a slightly darker street, to meet the dealer.
He's a skinny guy, about 40 years old. We sit on a step behind some parked motorbikes. The tourists in their shorts and t-shirts don't look twice at us as they stroll by.
Leaning in close so we can hear each other, we must look pretty suspicious. Clearly, at this hour, we're not discussing motorbike rentals.
He shows me a bag of what he says is cocaine — and asks whether I want one or two grams.
I tell him I'm worried about the police.
You don't have to be Corby or the Bali Nine to get into serious trouble here — Australians are jailed for a year and longer for the smallest amount of drugs.
I don't tell him that I was here last year covering the case of a Perth teenager who was nabbed in a nightclub with a bag of white powder — and was only freed because police tested it and it turned out to be painkillers, not cocaine.
The dealer reassures me.
"I'll look after you, don't you be scared, no worries," he says.
Foreigners targeted by drug syndicates
The National Narcotics Board (BNN) says the supply of drugs is in abundance in tourist destinations like Bali.
The board's spokesman, Sulistiandriatmoko, strongly advises visitors to be cautious.
"Tourists come in a happy mood, they're financially able — and they're the target of the drugs syndicates. For those who don't realise they're being targeted the temptation is very great.
"But from our point of view, whoever is arrested should answer before the law, Indonesian or foreigner."
There's plenty of temptation here — 50 metres from the Bali bomb memorial, a dealer offers me a gram of cocaine for $300.
He says if I buy 2 grams, he'll give me a $100 discount.
In the space of an hour in Kuta I'm offered speed, cocaine, hash, marijuana leaf, and cocaine by four separate dealers.
One man pursues me along the street. I walk past him, and he reappears in my path a minute or two later, as if by magic. He'd ridden ahead of me on his motorbike, he explains, and his prices drop each time.
By the third interaction he's offering to sell me 2 grams of cocaine for $100 — and to ease my concerns about the police, he'll deliver to my hotel room, as if it was a takeaway pizza.
"Where you staying? I bring you," he promises.
That would be a risky delivery to accept. The death penalty here applies for tiny quantity of drugs — technically it can be used for anything greater than 5 grams of marijuana.
Indonesia's major ice problem
Corby was lucky, in a way. She received her 20-year term about a year before the courts began regularly imposing the death penalty.
After remissions and clemency, she has ended up serving 12 years in jail.
The penalties in Indonesia are ruthless, not because of marijuana or cocaine, but because of the drug ice — crystal methamphetamine — known here as Shabu.
Indonesia has a major Shabu problem.
The BNN says 70 per cent of Indonesia's 5 million drug users are on Shabu.
I'm not offered any ice on the streets of Kuta. Maybe I'm just lucky.
Topics: law-crime-and-justice, laws, drugs-and-substance-abuse, community-and-society, human-interest, bali, indonesia
First posted