NACADA to engage communities in fighting drug and substance abuse

National Authority for the Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) is employing two strategies in the fight against drug and substance abuse. 

According to the authority’s Vice Chairperson Ann Mathu, their campaign is now focused on suppressing supply and reducing the demand respectively. 

“Demand reduction is also two pro, we have the preventive and the curative. Addiction is a disorder for the whole person, that is why we have the preventive and curative approach,” she said. 

In order to tackle the menace from a preventive approach, the NACADA vice chair said there are plans to have Sobriety Mashinani programs. 

“We are going to have community-based programs through churches, communities, organised women groups…reaching out to that person in the village, giving them information. This will prevent a person from indulging in drugs…if they have started they can stop…if they have goten to the habitual stage, rehabilitation will come in,” Mathu said on Citizen TV’s Day Break show. 

On the platform, Ahadi Kenya founder Stanley Kamau challenged NACADA’s approach to fighting drug and alcohol abuse by closing joints selling them. 

“We do not have shops selling bhang and hard drugs, but people still take them. The new style of business is door to door, we need to identify distributors taking drugs and substance to villages,” he said. 

He said the current interventions are more focused on people with addictions and not prevention and control.