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First it was pilots taking drugs before assuming their duties. Now a deputy director of the narcotics unit at the North Sumatra Police is being questioned for ordering drugs and planning to distribute the illegal substance to his friends. We can only hope this is an isolated case but we have to assume the worst.

The drug culture, it seems, is spreading to the higher strata of society at an alarming rate. No longer is drug abuse confined to misguided youths and criminal gangs who exist at the periphery of society. Today, the danger is lurking right at our doorstep.

Many have been taken aback when reports came of officials, lawmakers and councilors being caught using drugs. But this time the shock is even stronger, considering that an official who is supposed to enforce the law is involved and, even worse, that this specific official was supposed to be the very one battling drug use and trafficking.

It comes as little consolation that the friends he was supposed to distribute the drugs to were not members of the police force.

Another salient point in the story is that the drugs were ordered and purchased at a nightclub. Fresh in our minds is the case of a woman who had purchased and consumed drugs at such a club in Jakarta, before driving her car at high speed and fatally striking down nine pedestrians.

We must stop this menace before it consumes and destroys us all.

The fact that recreational drugs are easily available should already have caused alarm bells to ring, given that the distance from recreational to hard drugs is very short. Once drugs enter our lives, it is nearly impossible to free ourselves from their grip.

This is why it is an urgent matter for the government, schools and society as a whole to adopt a zero-tolerance stand when it comes to drugs and those who use them.

We must crack down hard on all those who are involved in peddling drugs as well as those who buy them.

If the police officer in question is found guilty of using drugs, he should be fired immediately and criminal charges should be brought against him. It is crucial for the police to show they will not tolerate drugs if they are to win the fight and keep the confidence of society. No issue is of greater importance to the nation.