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.

Tags:

Bhang NACADA DP Rigathi Gachagua Drug abuse

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