So a 14 year old boy goes to Bali with his parents.

Whilst there he heads off to partake of a massage,..
on the way he is offered a small quantity of Marijuana,
which he foolishly accepts in exchange for a small fee.
He is arrested when he leaves the place of
"massage" and is now to be prosecuted with
"drug possession" which carries a sentence of up to six
years in Kerobokan Prison!

Let us examine the "alleged" facts:
1) He is a minor.
2) He is in Bali with his parents.
3) He was "offered" the deal by a local.
4) The police were waiting for him when he left the
Massage premises.
5) The amount of the "drug" was insignificant.
6) Drugs are available on virtually every street corner
in Bali, and tourists are seen as an easy mark.

It is accepted in our country that many people smoke
Marijuana for recreational purposes, and the penalties
for minor infringements are quite liberal, varying in
severity from State to State, but generally culminating
in a small monetary fine for apprehended offenders.

This boy has broken the law and deserves to be punished,
at worst by a suggested six whacks across the backside
with a rattan, but to even contemplate sending him to be
confined in Kerobokan Prison for ANY length of time is
inhumane!

It is time that our Government took steps to protect
it`s citizens, by issuing a few stern warnings to the
Indonesian judiciary, reminding them that they should
clean up around their own back door and stop the
commonplace peddling that permeates their society if
they really want to benefit from our tourism dollars,
as well as the windfall of foreign aid that we so
generously provide to them,....or has that been negated
by the fiasco of the Live Cattle Export Ban?

It seems that if you are a tourist in Bali, it is okay
to participate in drugs as long as you are not stupid or
naive enough to get caught!

NB: I do NOT smoke Marijuana or partake of any other illegal
substance

There are huge problems in Bali. For all the moral protests and anti-Western sentiment, the fact is you cannot walk down the streets without being offered 'drugs, women, boys or girls for sexual services (according to one male friend who went on a Conference in that country). He ended up being quite aggressively rude to make it clear to these hawkers he was not interested. It is time the Indonesian police and judiciary cleaned up their own backyard.

The only way out is not to frequent these places and if you do don't be silly enough to do anything illegal. The fact that these sorts of sting operations nabbed a boy may mean the whole affair will end with an exchange - the one westerner for a handful of Indonesian criminals being held in Australia.

It is about Indonesia not losing face, and if the diplomats and lawyers can work around that, there might be a chance the boy will not face time in a the prison system.

Crack up, well aware you do not like me posting in your threads.
But this one just has to be addressed.
I know nothing of this kid or his parents.
Except what we have read.
Seems he has a history of being on the edge, his age has something to do with that.
He used drugs here, he went to a country you should be well aware is harsh on drug users, not our country,we have no right to act other than as they wish.
Thousands of drug using Aussies go there, some stop using while there others do not.
I think his mum and dad have committed a crime, in some eyes.
They Love their son.
Maybe in an effort to straighten him out they took him there,and a Friend.
We owe him only what we would owe you, if you got in to trouble over seas.
His age is the only thing keeping him in the headlines.
Bali owes us nothing, more drugs are sold in a night in our inner city sin spots that ever there.

Problems for Ozzies in Bali will go on until people get enough sense to stop going there.

It is nothing like it used to be, & really not worth the effort today.

A few months of vastly reduced tourist arrivals would do wonders for the place itself, & the welcome mat for future visitors.

everyone does something silly sometimes but if the parents knew he was into drugs then why on earth did they take him to Bali ??

I love this incredibly bigoted notion by Australians that Bali, an Indonesian nation that in 20 years changed from a clean, laid-back, moral place into a rundown slum area where Australia's worst cheapskates go to exploit cheap prostitutes, get wasted, and put on their worst most disrespectful behaviour towards the locals- to a point where most of a Balinese have actually moved out of the cities (the workers there are East Javan);
-And we are not only expecting the Balinese (and Indonesians in general) to be thankful that we are contributing to this, but we are making it their fault when they successfully try to enforce the laws that WE are not respecting when we visit when they actually catch us doing a crime?
Of course, it's only an issue when a white Australian is caught and punished in Indonesia- rather than some brown person.