SHAH ALAM, 1 Sept: The State Government is actively holding various programmes and providing various facilities for the use of the youth in the state to carry out beneficial activities to fill up their spare time, like exercising.

The Chief Minister, Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, said that the effort to empower youth will be intensified following statistical studies that show about 65 percent of the total number of drug addicts found are between the ages of 20 and 29 years of age.

Abdul Khalid said that this situation is even more worrying when this group of people are the youth who are the backbone of the country’s development and progress.

“How would this country be shaped if it is led and managed by a group of youths who have damaged their physical and mental (health) as a consequence of drug addiction?

“In fact, the living atmosphere in the society is no longer in peace because there are incidents of robbery, theft and other criminal activities committed by addicts because they need money to buy drugs,” said Abdul Khalid when inaugurating the Selangor International Youth Day 2014 at Dataran Kemerdekaan yesterday.

The Selangor International Youth Day 2014 celebration which was held yesterday had an estimate of over 10 thousand visitors who took part in various events held throughout the day, which was themed ‘Youth Independence Without Drugs’.

Among the events held at the event, which was simultaneously celebrated with the National Independence Day, was a classic car show, the sale of various items and so on.

Meanwhile, the event was enlivened with famous artists and celebrities including Neelofa, Najwa Latif, Felixia Yapor her Muslim name Raisha Rania, Imam Muda Asyraf and Ustaz Zul Pandan.

NS