Indonesia Looking into Medical use of Marijuana
Also, refueling your car? There’s an app for that.
Hi folks, so many major news came out last week from the launch of the MyPertamina app for the purchase of subsidized fuel to Jokowi’s questionable trip to Ukraine and Russia. Look, Indonesia has barely any leverage to get Putin to stop the invasion, it’s very unlikely the meeting was going to deliver anything meaningful as far as the war is concerned. In fact, anyone worth their salt would have seen that it’s little more than a show given the country’s G20 Presidency status this year. Ultimately Russia ended up offering to build nuclear power stations in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, an edgy alcoholic drink promotion may have cost an entertainment venue chain its entire business and an investigation into tax evasion.
Push for Medical Marijuana Takes a Step Forward
A picture of a woman taking her cerebral palsy-stricken daughter to the Jakarta Car Free Day with a sign "help, my child needs a medical marijuana" went viral last week, sparking a debate whether Indonesia should legalize marijuana for medical use.
The woman, Santi Warastuti is one of the plaintiffs in a Constitutional Court case to revise the 2009 Law on Narcotics which currently bars type 1 narcotics, including marijuana, for scientific, healthcare and therapeutic purposes.
The law has penalized several people who used marijuana to treat themselves or their loved ones, including one man from West Kalimantan who was sentenced to eight months in prison and a Rp1 billion for growing his own marijuana to treat his wife who had Syringomyelia. The wife died one month after her husband was arrested.
Santi’s actions managed to reignite the debate about medical marijuana. Her viral photo even inspired Vice President Ma’ruf Amin, the former chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), to ask the Islamic body to issue a fatwa on medical marijuana.
Yahya Cholil Staquf, the chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s biggest Muslim organization, said he is willing to hear what the medical community has to say about the issue before NU scholars mull on whether they should issue a fatwa on the matter.
The Ministry for Justice and Human Rights said it is also open to the idea of legalizing medical marijuana and promised to weigh in on the pros and cons of its legalization.
Jokowi’s Peace Mission
Indonesian president Jokowi traveled to both Ukraine and Russia last week and met with Ukrainian president Zelensky and Russian president Putin.
The meetings appeared to be geared towards mitigating the impact of Russia’s invasion towards the global food supply chain and less about peace and stability in Europe although Jokowi did say he will try to broker peace between the two countries.
Before departing for Kyiv, Jokowi stressed the need to end the war because it has driven a worldwide food and energy crisis, including in Indonesia which is seeing increased prices of fuel and scarcity of some commodities like cooking oil.
Ukraine is a major producer of wheat and sunflower oil while Russia is a key player in natural gas and fertilizer. Ukraine’s export is pretty much devastated by the invasion while Russia has been hit with economic sanctions by Western countries.
Jokowi said Putin has agreed to open a sea route so that Ukraine can resume exporting its wheat. Putin also promised that Russia’s fertilizer exports to friendly countries like Indonesia will not be affected.
The respective meetings with Putin and Zelensky also talked about possible visa free agreements and the resumption of direct flights from the two countries to Bali.
The visit is also geared towards making sure that the upcoming G20 summit in Bali will not be so filled with drama. Zelensky said that he will try to come but it depends on who’s coming. There is a possibility that Putin will not come physically to Bali but participate in the summit remotely. This is good news since some world leaders had stated that they will not come if Putin’s there.
So it is no surprise many experts have said that Jokowi’s visit will not help bring an end to the bloodshed. In fact, Russia continued to shell Ukrainian towns and cities and tensions between Russia and Ukraine’s allies have all but cooled down.
MyPertamina or Your Pertamina?
People wishing to buy Pertamina’s fuel brands “Pertalite” and “Solar” (which powers diesel cars instead of solar-powered ones) will have to register themselves online before they are eligible to buy the subsidized fuels.
A trial run is being conducted starting July 1 in 11 cities and regencies including Bandung, Manado, Banjarmasin and the city of Yogyakarta. They said it applies only to car owners because motorcycles don’t fill up as much. There’s a lot of math involved which may or may not end up making sense but that’s what they decided to go with.
The state oil company argued that subsidized fuel is for the poor only and the registration process is meant to weed out those ineligible to receive subsidy.
Hopefuls must state the type of vehicle they drive to make sure they have engines below 2,000cc. People also have to input their ID number, address, license plate and so on. Customers even had to input their hobbies, one Twitter user noted.
Once approved, customers must present a QR code they received using an app specifically built for this program: myPertamina or downloaded when registering through Pertamina’s website.
Pertamina said people who haven’t got their QR code can still buy Pertalite and Solar, at least for now. There are plans to expand this to the subsidized 3kg LPG tanks although no date has been set yet.
But these things rarely go smoothly in Indonesia. People are complaining that the website continuously failed to load because their server was down. Pertamina even had to erect tents at some stations to help people register.
Pertamina also failed to anticipate that residents can simply travel beyond the city limits to buy fuel, which some folks did. As if that wasn’t obvious to begin with.
The Indonesian Consumer Foundation had predicted that there would be mayhem on July 1. One expert has noted that these problems stemmed from the fact that the technology behind it all seemed to be hastily prepared and hadn’t been beta-tested.
The same expert also worried about Pertamina’s digital security with so much of the customers’ personal information, solicited during the registration process, being stored.
Besides, the expert continued, you don’t need an app to know that a Lamborghini Aventador or a Ferrari Enzo shouldn’t be using subsidized fuel meant for the poor, amirite?
Well, That Escalated Quickly
One week after the controversial free alcoholic drinks promo for anyone named Muhammad or Maria, entertainment chain Holywings suspended operations in 36/38 outlets across the country and have had its business license in Jakarta revoked.
Despite being backed by high profile lawyer Hotman Paris Hutapea, Holywings Group is no stranger to legal entanglements. Their outlets in Jakarta, Makassar, Semarang, and Surabaya all had to close for several days in 2021 for violating multiple PPKM orders. Hotman Paris chose to not say anything about the case, thus far.
On 24 June, six employees were arrested and charged with blasphemy (and hate speech, wtf) following the controversial promotion; the creative director, head of promotions team, graphic designer, promotions team admin, and two social media officers. They were later dismissed by the company. Point of note, the cops thought creative director is a board position, instead of a managerial one. Someone should clue them in.
The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation said there’s no actual law being broken by the promotional campaign but it didn’t seem to matter because of the widespread outrage demanding someone to be punished for offending them.
Holywings Group published two apology letters on Instagram laying the blame squarely on the six now former employees and promising to do better. They also deactivated their Twitter account, removed all posts from their verified and non verified IG accounts, and took down their website.
Out of the 12 outlets in Jakarta that were shut down, seven outlets in Jakarta were found to have licenses to sell alcohol but not serve them on site, while five had no liquor license at all. Investigations and national public outrage led to either forced or voluntary closure of 36 outlets across the country except in Batam and Manado.
Multiple permit violations ultimately led the Jakarta government to bar Holywings from reopening in the city. Initially Jakarta Vice Governor Ahmad Riza Patria seemed to suggest that the chain may reopen their outlets in the national capital, but one day later clarified that due to multiple permit violations, the company is actually barred from operating in the city.
Jakarta’s Revenue Office discovered that Holywings only paid restaurant tax but not entertainment tax despite hosting live music and events regularly. Entertainment venues are taxed differently with certain components appraised separately and with higher rates, such as alcohol. The Jakarta parliament wants an investigation into tax evasion.
For a brand that has had multiple run ins with the authority, it sure doesn’t look like they were interested in staying on the safe side.
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