via Drug abuse cause for concern – DailyNews Live 24 June 2014
HARARE – Drug abuse is a sign of a troubled and a hopeless life.
As reported elsewhere in this paper, the police, by their own admission, are grappling with ever increasing cases of abuse, chiefly among them, in Harare which has maintained a disturbing surge.
Zimbabwe, and indeed security agencies, need to develop new strategies to deal with this escalating problem.
The report by the police at the commemorations of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking last week was not a surprise.
Police found that Harare had the nation’s highest rate of drug abuse between 2013 and 2014.
They are dealing with over 100 drug cases every month.
But clearly the onus remains on the police to continue efforts to curb this scourge and do more.
For example, the State has made some strides in partnering with churches to stem this crisis. Of course, this crisis needs financial resources, which resources still fall way short of serving all the people who need help.
Without even more effort, this problem will not go away.
We applaud State efforts to confront the widespread abuse of drugs and the growing demand for same.
It comes in the wake of tighter monitoring by authorities and the subsequent rise in the sale of drugs on city streets.
It is sobering that between June 2012 and July 2013, police seized 2 472 kg of mbanje, 8 347 kg of heroine and 12 175 kg of cocaine.
For addicts, mbanje has become a popular alternative. To deal with the statewide crisis, police reached agreement with churches on a package of action to stem this problem. These steps are bound to save lives.
We urge authorities to introduce tougher laws and new programmes to protect all drug users — especially the youngest in our communities, who represent a frightening share of drug victims.
We need an aggressive stance to fight the dangers of drug abuse.
But whatever actions are taken by police, they need to be complemented by tougher legislation to double the maximum penalty for drug barons, and to also involve other stakeholders.
The epidemic of drug use has devastated families. Drugs are a dark and painful substance that drags our teenagers far away from the happy and purposeful life they deserve. Many are dying of overdoses of everything from “Bronco” to hard drugs.
The fact is, drug addicts need all the help they can get.
COMMENTS
Under Zanu’s misrule, I wonder how many people are leading the ‘happy and purposeful lives they deserve’?!
12 tonnes of coke???? another bullsh!t report trying to shift the focus from total misrule and theft by the gov
100 cases in a city of millions. Another proof of how absolutely useless ZANU and its organs are.
As for tougher laws, this country already has stupidly excessively tough drug laws which do not help anyway.
Much of the world is legalizing mbanji and here we have very backward persons writing articles like this.
Real drug problems are the cheap and dangerous alcohol from Mozambique and the very addictive cough mixture also from Mozambique. None of this gets a mention.
@John Thomas – if you ever finish school you will learn there are priorities and issues of importance.
Your comments about cough mixture and alcohol are a joke by comparison to the realissue of drugs and only serves to advertise your lack of intelligence and learning.
There hasc always beenm a serious drug problem in Harare in its schools made worse by idiots that refused to accept the facts.
One psychologist, Angela Davies claimed all her patients came from one school in Harare, Chisipite. where she counseled girls on drug./ alcohol abuse.
In Harare the door to door delivery service in the northern suburgs of Heroine anmd Cocaine existed before it was copied in New York.
Sadly withourt the support of parents and teachers it was bound to increase – an example of the problem is John Thomas’s comment above – it is these people that allowed the drug situation to get out of hand through their ignorance, effectively covering up the drug problem.
The we have the clever dicks who find it hard to count that high, like the other comment who tries to make out the journalist is wrong – on this one occasion I can say the information sounds correct from my investigations into the problem years ago.
Teachers are a major problem too, covering up situations to protect the school and by extension their jobs. Drug problems and even murders have been covered up by headmasters and teaching staff at prominent private boarding schools.
Try to educate yourself to the real situation locally so that we can all help to shut the dealers down.