DRUG ABUSE PROBLEM RISING

Nairobi - If National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse boss
Joseph Kaguthi is to be believed, the Ministry of Health has been
remarkably lax in setting up rehabilitation centres.

And this despite growing evidence that drug abuse has taken root in society.

It used to be that young people, especially schoolchildren, would
surreptitiously drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes as they tried to deal
with the challenges of adolescence.

But while these still remain a serious problem, abusers are moving on to
ever more sophisticated drugs - cocaine, heroin and mandrax, according to
Mr Kaguthi.

It is hard enough for families having to deal with this emerging crisis
within the domestic setting and for teachers to manage the problem.

Indeed, parents, sick and tired of seeing their children slide deeper down
this slippery path, have often taken to the streets to protest against
known drug peddlars.

The call for rehabilitation centres, provided for by the Drug and Substance
Abuse Act of 1994, springs from a need to take abusers away from the
situation that promotes abuse.

It is meant to provide time out for drug abusers as they heal far from
temptation and from the things that triggered their crisis in the first place.

We are told that the ministry has also failed to provide standards and
guidelines on managing drug abuse. The end result has been that the demand
end of things has been largely left untended.

Getting into a drug habit is easy; getting out is a process that has to be
carefully managed if we are not to destroy our youth, hence the need for a
systematic policy approach.

We have spent considerable time and attention on the supply side of drug
abuse, and received a good amount of support from international agencies.

With reports that most young people will fall into the trap of drug abuse
at some point in the schooling process, including at university level, it
is time we spent useful time reviewing how to deal with the demand side of
things.