SAMS SENSE: A sobering reality
Tonight, my thoughts are with the young
generation and I hope I can provoke you to think about a catastrophe we are
staring at.
In recent years, I have watched many clips of
young men and women consumed in drug and substance abuse, staggering across
towns and villages as they leave their local dens to get back home very early
in the morning. I have listened to stories of distraught parents, wailing, and
lost in deep thoughts about their sons and daughters who have, “lost it”. Some
have lost their lives to toxic substances sold for profit.
Recently, I have listened to stories of how
bad the situation is getting in schools. Of learners lost to drug abuse. Of
secondary schools where smoking of bhang, or is it ndukulu, mambichwa, ngwai,
or blunt, (name them), is now more fashionable; call it cool, it is the in thing.
It is how you make it.
Of how teenagers now share the puff like the
infamous, “puff, puff pass”. Of how high schools are becoming dens of highness;
and the teachers can do nothing about it. Not because they do not care anymore,
but a menace has simply gotten out of hand.
We live in what I’d call, “a high society”.
Statistics from the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and
Drug Abuse (NACADA) show that ten per cent of the Kenyan population use at
least one drug or substance. It gets more interesting that nearly 24 in every
one hundred workers in the public sector are users of alcohol, whether legal or
illicit. That two in every 100 workers in the public sector are users of
cannabis.
But did you know that the younger generation
of between 15 and 24 years, meaning those in high schools and colleges, abuse
cannabis more than the older ones? Nearly three in every 100 such citizens are
using cannabis.
NACADA puts cannabis lifetime prevalence in
secondary schools at 7.5 per cent. Assuming there are 4 million children in
secondary schools, then it means that at least 300,000 of them have used bhang
at least once while in school. Broken down, in a school of 1,000 students, at
least 75 have been involved. These are children.
I find it not surprising that more than half
of the KCSE class of 2022 scored a D plus and below. That a whole 40 per cent
of the class scored a D plain, D minus or grade E, meaning just one point on
average, one. I don’t mean to say they are drug abusers, but school culture has
a major impact on the grade culture.
We live in a society of fewer and fewer role
models. In our families we live with parents, uncles and aunts who are so
consumed in the substance abuse.
Last week Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua
led a leaders meeting in Mt. Kenya region to find solutions to the alcohol and
drug abuse menace there. Several ideas were floated on how to crack hard on
illegal alcohol brewing dens; of how the national government administration
officers will enforce the law. But who will enforce the law in our young
citizens?
When teachers are too cautious to intervene
or is it interfere; when parents are perennially defending their children with
their all when called to disciplinary hearings; when parents and guardians are
no longer devoting time with their children for guidance, and simply,
parenting.
NACADA says that over half a million people
are hooked to cannabis, 431,000 of them are experiencing cannabis related
disorders, more than half of them being at a severe stage. The same authority
states that out of 3.2 million users of alcohol, over 80 per cent have
experienced alcohol use related disorders, with 1.4 million being diagnosed to
be severe disorders.
We live in a world where county governments
in Kenya do not bother invest in rehabilitation centres, but they are eager to
collect the licensing fees from liquor selling outlets. We live in a world
where nine out of every ten rehabilitation centres are privately owned and run.
We live in a world where seeking help in a rehab is stigmatized and becomes the
talk of town. A world where friends will walk away from one of their own when
they are in substance trouble.
When we lose the young and energetic minds to
alcohol, cannabis, tobacco and other substances, who will build the nation? How
shall we expand the economy? How shall we build a society of providers and not
dependants?
And that, is just my sense tonight.
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