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Kenya |
DRUGS
Although many tend to associate the abuse of hard drugs with developed
countries,
the menace has in recent years, also crept into the less developed
countries of sub-Saharan Africa such as Kenya
So worrying is the problem in Kenya now, that local experts are already expressing concern that the country has neither the security infrastructure to stem their penetration, nor the medical capacity to cure and rehabilitate addicts. The great tragedy is that the youth are the worst afflicted. A recent study on adolescent drug abuse in Kenya, revealed that 92% of Kenyan adolescents and young adults have experimented with drugs at some stage in their lives.
The report, entitled: «Adolescent Drug Abuse in Kenya: Impact on Reproductive Health», included various abuses and addictions in its findings. Mention was made of beer, spirits, cigarettes, a local brew called busaa, cannabis sativa (bhang), inhalants, narcotics and mood altering drugs as having negative effects among Kenyan youth. The study revealed that 23% of Kenya’ youth consume beer and spirits, cigarette smokers account for 19.8%, busaa is drunk by 16.6%; another potent local brew called chang’aa is imbibed by 10.9%, bhang is smoked by 9.3%, 3% go in for narcotics and mood altering drugs.
The UN International Drug Control Programme’s World Drug Report for 2000, ranked Kenya among the four African nations notorious for either consumption or manufacture of narcotics. According to the report, the country’s port of Mombasa is a major drug trafficking point for Africa, together with Dar es Salaam, Maputo and Durban. These four cities, the report noted, were the ports most frequently used as transit points for drug traffickers.
Kenya — a centre for drug trafficking
Kenya’s 1,000 km coastline is ideal for traffickers’ operations. The coastline is dotted with thousands of small islands, islets and estuaries. It is poorly policed and, apart from the occasional navy frigate on patrol near Kenya’s borders with Somalia and Tanzania, the rest of the shoreline is a haven for traffickers.
The Lamu archipelago near the Somali border, is one of the most notorious entry points for drugs dumped in the high seas in the thick of the night. The drugs are brought ashore by dhows and later transported to Mombasa and Nairobi where the contraband then finds its way onto the international market.
Bhang (cannabis sativa) which is readily available locally, is the most commonly abused drug, with people smoking the dried leaves. Manufactured i.e. treated bhang is sold as hashish. Today, almost all the other hard drugs found in the world are available in Kenya. Of these, heroin is the most widely used because it is easily affordable and more readily available.
According to recent police estimates, Kenya produces 80 tonnes of bhang with a street value of Ksh1000 (US $12.82) per kilogramme, every year. At one time, heroin fetched a street price of Ksh600 (US $7.69) a sachet but increased supply has since brought down the price.
Khat (catha edulis), popularly known as «miraa» is another common drug in Kenya. Apart from making the body and mind of the user more sluggish, miraa also increases the users’ consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. But considering its economic significance to the farmers and traders in the areas where it is grown, many say that any attempts to restrict its use, is bound to generate a great deal of resistance.
Local drug control agents are worried that countries such as Kenya are being used as a transit route between suppliers in Asia and consumers in the industrialised countries of the West.
The police say their battle against drug-trafficking has been hampered by the poor equipment they use in tracking down drug-traffickers and by the country’s relatively ineffective judicial system. According to Kenya’s attorney general, Mr. Amos Wako, drug traffickers are usually better equipped than the law enforcement agencies.
Another troubling issue is that powerful and well connected personalities are behind the drug cartels. One of the areas most notorious for the cultivation of bhang are the slopes of Mount Kenya. Here, a powerful cartel is believed to be responsible for the bhang plantations found there.
Recently, Bishop John Njue, the Catholic Bishop for Embu diocese, stated that it is wealthy and «untouchable» people who secretly grow bhang in the forests of Mount Kenya. The local people think so too and wonder how the «drug barons» transport the bhang to markets in Nairobi and Mombasa without being detected by the police. The plantations, they say, are guarded round the clock by gangs of watchmen armed with poisoned arrows.
The Mount Kenya bhang farms are concentrated on the Embu and Meru slopes of the mountain and in the most difficult terrain. The size of each bhang farm ranges between two and three acres and they are scattered in discreet areas inside the forests.
According to the head of Kenya’s Anti-Narcotic Drugs Unit, Mr. Michael Jackobam, in 1998 the police discovered and destroyed 346 acres of bhang in the area. In 1999, another 200 acres were discovered and destroyed. In 2000, the police announced they had plans for aerial spraying of bhang plantations in the area but these plans were vehemently opposed by local environmentalists who said this would be catastrophic to the local ecosystem. The co-ordinator of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, Prof. Wangari Maathai said that while spraying would offer a «quick fix» to the problem, it could pose a grave danger to the environment.
The government has also established such control measures as the Anti-Narcotics Unit, to specifically investigate drug-related offenses. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act is now on the statute books. A permanent inter-ministerial drug co-ordinating committee aimed at formulating a national drug control policy and strategy has also been established. Police in all the three East African countries, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, have also resolved to synchronise and intensify the fight against the drug barons and against drug trafficking.
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