Other / indonesian

Member of the DPR RI Commission VI PKS Faction Rafli issued a statement which, in the Indonesian context, was controversial. In a meeting with the Minister of Trade Agus Suparmanto at the Indonesian Parliament on Thursday (1/30/2020), he suggested that cannabis be legally exported. Initially Rafli criticized the performance of the Ministry of Trade which he said lacked coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture in marketing agricultural products. "Don't move in just one sector, because our country is an agrarian country," Rafli said. One example is the Ministry of Trade's program in Aceh. He sentenced the programs carried out at the venue "to not function and to be misdirected."  After that, Rafli, a legislator from the electoral district of Aceh I, talked about the potential of marijuana that could bring a lot of money to the country. According to him, in Aceh, marijuana thrived and "we can use it for export abroad." "The benefits have been proven to be many, one of which is in pharmacy." He then asked "we should not be too rigid in looking at cannabis," because according to him the discourse about the dangers of cannabis "is a global conspiracy." The same thing was said by Deputy Chairman of PKS DPR RI Mulyanto. According to him, Acehnese cannabis should be exported abroad for medical purposes and managed and monitored by the government. His statement at once clarified Rafli's intentions which were interpreted wrongly by some parties. "It means that cannabis as a raw material to be processed into medicine. Not raw cannabis that can be distorted," he said. Between Medical and Economical This proposal gave rise to a classic debate about the pros and cons of cannabis. People give related responses to each other. Fajran Zain, Executive Director of The Aceh Institute, a nonprofit research institute that focuses on the study of development, social and democracy in Aceh, for example, assesses that the first thing that needs to be emphasized is the perspective of seeing marijuana when considering the PKS politician's proposal. According to him, marijuana must first be seen from the perspective of science and science. "We must put [marijuana] in a scientific study first. We must be open-minded," he told reporter Tirto, Friday (1/31/2020) afternoon. He then quoted Professor Musri Musman's thesis as saying "marijuana has 600 chemical compounds that are positive for medical purposes." Some countries such as Uruguay and Thailand have been using marijuana for this purpose, added Fajran. According to Fajran, cannabis in Aceh can be harvested every three months without the need for fertilizer or special ingredients There are five variants of cannabis that grows in Aceh, Fajran knows. Indeed, not all have medical benefits. One in five variants of Acehnese cannabis is vulnerable to abuse. From this medical basis, Fajran considered that the PKS politician's proposal should be discussed further. He tends to agree with this proposal. For him the next discussion could lead to the calculation of the economic value if marijuana is exported. "It's just that when legalized, the government must tighten regulations. Utilization is limited, production is limited, only certified people can handle it," he said. Another note given by Fajran relates to who enjoyed the benefits of cannabis export. It's useless if in the end the only ones who benefit are just a few. "If it only benefits the capitalists, it's very unfortunate. Because today Aceh is one of the poorest provinces on the island of Sumatra," he said. SDA is good but the people are poor Fajran's last words were not bullshit. Abundant financial resources but not improving the people's economy were mentioned by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani in 2017. At that time Sri Mulyani said that the regional government had not maximized the Special Autonomy Fund (Otsus) which should have been able to improve the quality of development. From the data collected by the Tirto research team, the poverty rate in Aceh is indeed alarming and has never dropped significantly. Since 2000, the poverty rate in Aceh has never been below 10 percent. The 'proudest' achievement in the area only recorded a poverty rate of 15.20 percent. That also happened 20 years ago (2000). Finally, in 2018, the poverty rate was still 15.97 percent. As a comparison, Indonesia's poverty rate in 2018 was 9.66 percent. During 2007-2018, the number of poor people included in the BPS category was stable between 800 thousand to 900 thousand. Aceh's poverty rate even touched 28-29 percent during 2002-2006, before and after the Helinski agreement on August 15, 2005 — one of the important events in Aceh. Aceh's economic growth since 2005 - a year of memorandum of understanding between GAM and the Indonesian government in Helsinki - has never presented a good report card. In that year, economic growth was even minus 13 percent. The following year it increased to 2.4 percent. After that, for three years in a row, it dropped dramatically and again touched the minus number. Since 2010, growth has been volatile, with increases and decreases of 1-2 percent. In 2015, Aceh's economic growth again dropped to minus 0.73. Aceh's economic growth, according to the BPS Aceh report on Gross Regional Domestic Products, is due to the decline in production and contributions to mining, quarrying, and processing industries. This negative growth was impacted by the mining moratorium based on Law No. 4/2009 on Minerals and Coal. Profits Must Belong to the People Dhira Narayana from the Nusantara Marijuana Circle (LGN) said what PKS politicians deserve to be supported. "Instead of being arrested by [users / traffickers] and then burned [for the price], why isn't it exported? What's the disadvantage? After all, someone was arrested," he said when contacted on Friday afternoon. But he also gave a thick note. Cannabis exports must be able to empower local communities and farmers. "If marijuana was originally thought to be limited to exports, it was too shallow. It should be able to be managed by the community," he said. Dhira said public welfare should be a priority in talks about cannabis exports. If for example those who grow cannabis are still poor, it means [the program] has failed. The lucky ones must be together, not just investors and elites.