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'GANJA Club' and 'Don't drink and drive, smoke weed and fly' go the exhortations glorifying illicit drugs in an advertising campaign carried by a section of the print media that has been going on since last year with nary a raised eyebrow nor comment from any quarter.

'Ganja or weed' are slang or nicknames for bhang (marijuana) and that advertisements propagating their use can be carried regularly by one of the mainstream Kenyan dailies in spite of the fact that bhang is an illicit substance serves as a reminder that any ads however unethical can be carried by the Kenyan media as long as they are being paid for.

Since last year, a city firm has been offering logos for cell phones with the above mentioned messages. These logos and picture messages in general are extremely popular with young people, who make up 60% of Kenya's population and are thus a major target of those selling goods or services - including drug dealers.

Kenyan youth are already reeling under the tragic effects of drug abuse and that a company operating here would still callously encourage drug abuse for profit at any cost, also qualifies them to be lumped into the same category as drug dealers for their goals are the same.

But even more alarming is the fact that a mainstream newspaper accepts payment for these advertisements in what for lack of an alternative description can only be construed as aiding and abetting drug trafficking. This is because they are advertising the use and perceived benefits of bhang an illegal substance in Kenya under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act No. 4, - which was enacted in 1994.

What is advertising? Well most advertising is intended to be persuasive - to win coverts to use certain goods, services or follow certain ideas. It is also usually aimed at a particular section of the population known in advertising parlance as the target audience.

Therefore when you occasionally see certain ads which you find unappealing, these are probably not aimed at you or any of the groups you belong to, thus male Kenyans would not find ads for tampons interesting as they are not the target audience.

But where then are we going to draw the line? To what extent do we allow greed to dictate what can appear in a newspaper and what cannot? Try to write an article today on the dangers involved with the use of licit drugs like beer or tobacco and most newspapers will not carry it.

Reason: the manufacturers of these two drugs buy pages almost every week to advertise their products. Loads and loads of lovely cash, easy cash for the newspaper publishers who will therefore bend over backwards and beyond so as not to antagonise the source of this filthy lucre.

British American Tobacco (K) Ltd. still also boldly advertises in the print media by using indirect marketing tactics. With it's Jenga Jina' (build your name) campaign it shifts attention from the lurking danger in cigarettes, to the water pumps and other clinics they will build for the community, using money which comes out of their advertising budget.

But this allows them to not only place massive full page often even double center fold ads which indirectly advertise their Sportsman brand of cigarettes, but also enable them to pull the wool over the publics' eyes. This happens when Kenyans who come across these ads are taken in by them to the extent of believing that BAT cares for the community.

When they look at the water pumps, social halls or clinics built in the name of the winners of various draws in this competition, they fail to see the calamitous misery brought about by tobacco and the use of its by-products and the huge cost to the government as well as to individual Kenyans every year in mopping up tobacco created ailments and problems including death.

The same newspapers who are aware of the adverse effects of tobacco and tobacco products and who should be at the forefront of the campaign for demand reduction instead gleefully carry the ads and suppress any articles which would seek to tell the truth.

The same media will be used as tobacco companies open this or that function which perpetuate the myths of what good companies they are with a lot of 'social responsibility'. The media, the voice of the people, the self-same will continue to smother us with ads for a poison, for that is all cigarettes are. 4,034 poisons at last count, all jam packed into one tiny innocuous looking drug delivery system - the cigarette.

Who will save us? The government cannot for tobacco and government are too entangled in this dance of death in which it is the innocent trusting Kenyan who dies. Who own or have major shares in tobacco companies? The latest being started up at the Coast belongs to former Kanu stalwart and Minister Sharif Nassir.

The media should be in the forefront of drug abuse awareness. But when that same media becomes the avenue for which illegal drugs and poisons are advertised, then we need to question where we are.

When a newspaper claims to be family orientated while at the same time advertising mood-altering, addictive drugs, legal or otherwise then the veracity of this claim has to be questioned even as we look at our tolerance as Kenyans to docilely accept this status quo.

David Ogot is a freelance journalist/producer with personal experience with alcoholism. He can be reached at goinghomedotcom@tahoo.com Website: www.goinghomekenya.org

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