High-flyer’s big dreams shattered by drug spiral

SINGAPORE — He was running a successful interior design business with 60 employees that clinched contracts worth millions. He was also a grassroots leader, and was even harbouring political ambitions.

Beneath the veneer, Matthew Poh was consuming cannabis all through that time, and for the better part of a decade, was popping Ecstasy pills as well. Things came crashing down before long, when he faced difficulties in his personal life, and he turned to dealing drugs.

“You won’t know one when you see one. You didn’t recognise one sitting in front of you,” said Mr Poh, 46, making the point of how easily drug abusers and dealers can conceal their illicit activities.

Sentenced to one year’s jail for his drug offences, he was released in October last year.

The mess he wound up in was something that Mr Poh, the youngest son from a well-to-do family, did not see coming.

He used drugs for the first time in 1994, on his 23rd birthday. Celebrating it with his first visit to a disco, Mr Poh was given an Ecstasy pill by his then-girlfriend — she became his first wife later.

He did not turn back after that. For eight years, the couple’s routine was to go for a lavish dinner on Fridays, then pop an Ecstasy pill each before partying until 3am. To last through underground after-parties that went on till 6am, they would take another Ecstasy pill. And as day breaks, they would smoke marijuana to “come down” from their high, so that they could zone off into slumber.

While he stopped partying when his interior design business kept him busy, he did not lay off drugs even though he claimed he could live without them.

When his wife left him for another man and his mother died in 2013, Mr Poh’s life was sent into a tailspin. Not only did he sink deeper into drug abuse, he went into dealing after losing his business and became a bankrupt.

“Amid those crises, I thought I could handle, but I couldn’t ... Facing four walls alone at home drove me all the way down. Friends came, I started taking Ice,” he said.

At around that time, he stepped down his involvement in the Citizens’ Consultative Committee of North East Community Development Council (CDC), after 10 years of grassroots work. Since 2015, Poh — who was the Tampines Region chairman of the People’s Action Party’s youth wing, Young PAP, at one point — has not been a party member.

Mr Poh also started shirking his responsibilities at work, winding up in several lawsuits, and his business folded. Turned bankrupt, Mr Poh started a drug dealing enterprise with four friends to earn money.

Drugs like Ecstasy, Ice, Ketamine, Erimin 5, heroin and cannabis were supplied by Malaysian contacts every other day and they ran a brisk business. Within hours, they would clear out 1kg to 2kg, with each partner taking charge of delivery according to geographical sectors.

“‘Food’ comes in every other day at 12 midnight. By 6am, they will be fully distributed,” he said. Within that window was a “clean and scientific” packing process, such that every gram was accounted for.

A 200g package of Ice, for instance, would be repacked into 40 even portions, each sold for S$500 or higher — prices were at least double the cost.

The day’s five-figure profits would be split evenly.

The profitable illicit trade lasted for around two years before the syndicate was busted in 2015 - months after he was kicked out following a fall-out with his partners. One of his partners got sentenced to death while the other three got between 12 and 17 years’ jail. Although he had left the group earlier, Mr Poh turned himself in eventually. He ended up spending eight months in the Drug Rehabilitation Centre at Changi Prison and four months in a halfway house before being released in October last year.

Looking back in regret, Mr Poh said he could have tried to enter politics and gained further success as a businessman if he had stayed clean.

“Now sitting in front of you, I am a divorcee, a bankrupt, a (former) drug addict, an (ex-)inmate ... I lost it all,” said Mr Poh, who still has to report monthly for urine tests.

When contacted, Mayor of North East CDC Teo Ser Luck, was surprised that Mr Poh had a drug habit during that period.

“I really didn’t know,” he told TODAY. “During that time when he was active, he was very helpful and enterprising. I didn’t know (he abused drugs and became a dealer afterwards), but I think we shouldn’t judge anyone. Whatever he (did), if he now wants to contribute to the betterment of the community, we should give people second chances, right?”

Having turned over a new leaf, Mr Poh said he has realised that drugs is never the solution, even if “the pain and agony was really unbearable”.

He added: “Drugs give you a glimpse of happiness, but that’s not real. What we need to do is to work through our issues to find true happiness.”