East Lombok Students Arrested While Receiving Synthetic Tobacco Packages, Police Also Safeguard The Book 'The Story Of Cannabis Leaves'

MATARAM - The Narcotics Investigation Unit Team of the Mataram City Police, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) confiscated the book 'Hikayat Tree Ganja' in revealing the case of sending packages from outside the region containing synthetic tobacco.

"So we didn't confiscate this book, but we secured it, because when we searched the house where one of the perpetrators lived," said Deputy Chief of the Mataram Police AKBP Syarif Hidayat, at a press conference in Mataram, Antara, Wednesday, January 26.

Syarif, who was accompanied by the Head of the Mataram Police Narcotics Unit, Kompol I Made Yogi Purusa Utama, revealed that the perpetrator had the initials TP (21), who was still a student from Pringgabaya, East Lombok Regency.

"We secured this book from the second location, namely in a house in the Lingkar Permai Housing area, Sekarbela District, Mataram City. This book was secured with evidence of cellphones, tobacco paper, and rolling pins," he said.

For the first location, he explained, was in one of the goods delivery service offices. This first location, which Syarif called, became a place for TP's to be arrested with evidence of a package containing synthetic tobacco. "The perpetrator was arrested Tuesday night shortly after taking the package containing the synthetic tobacco," he said.

Syarif disclosed the presence of synthetic tobacco in the package, based on the results of the development of information from Customs and Excise.

TP told the police that the package containing synthetic tobacco weighing 11.18 grams belonged to two of his colleagues in Praya, Central Lombok Regency.

"Departing from TP's information, the team went straight to Praya and arrested two of his colleagues with the initials AF and JH," he said.

Hidayat said that AF (27), came from West Java and JH (25), a male student from Masbagik, East Lombok Regency. "He said (TP) this book was given to him by HF, which he knew when climbing to Rinjani," he said.

According to Hidayat, the book contains the philosophy of cannabis. He saw that there were positive sides described in the book, one of which was related to the health benefits of marijuana.

"This book is sold freely, but what is the purpose (of mastering the book), whether for production or just to gain knowledge, we will have an in-depth interrogation later," he said.

The book "The Tale of the Cannabis Tree" has the subtitle of 12,000 Years of Fertilizing Human Civilization. It was first published in 2011 and was printed in the last revised edition in March 2020.

The book "The Tale of the Cannabis Tree" is the work of an activist who graduated from the University of Indonesia, namely Dhira Narayana with the organization he founded called Lingkar Ganja Nusantara (LGN).

Furthermore, from this case the three perpetrators have been named suspects and have also been detained. As suspects, they are suspected of Article 111 Paragraph 2, Article 114 Paragraph 2, and Article 27 Paragraph 1 Letter a of Law Number 35/2009 concerning Narcotics.