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The young man eyes blazing, a small bubble of saliva glinting brightly on his lower lip stares at his father across the room with intense anger. The only warning of impending danger for those who know him well, is a slight narrowing of the eyes. Then in one swift, almost graceful movement, he has swept a heavy vase off a nearby table and sent it winging on its deadly trajectory straight into his unbelieving Dad's left temple.
Blood spurts, instantly and brightly as the young man impassionately watches his pole-axed profusely bleeding parent. Behind him his mother who has all the while remained frozen watching this macabre tableau play itself out, suddenly regains her power of movement breaking into a shrill bout of hysterical screaming as she kneels at her husband's side trying to stem the copious flow of blood.
The man is admitted at M.P. Shah Hospital where he receives nine stitches and admitted for observation for possible concussion. Talking to the father a few days later, he admitted that "I knew my son had been taking 'a little' alcohol and some drugs 'I think' bhangi (marijuana) but he has never been violent!" he finished incredulously. "Now even the mother is scared of him and doesn't want him around until he can get some help and in fact her blood pressure has hit the roof. What can we do?"
'To use drugs or not to use?' that is the question every single child in Kenya is going to face at one point in their lives. Every child male or female. This inevitability plus the fact that no parent or guardian can do anything about it, or even avoid this day, is a most terrifying scenario.
Nothing that is except maybe to prepare them adequately to negotiate this treacherous minefield. If painstakingly and lovingly prepared they have a 100% chance of making it to the other side relatively if not completely unscathed.
Those less than suitably prepared might lose a limb, one of their senses like eyesight or become permanently crippled both physically and mentally. Then there are those, the vast majority of Kenyan youth who are simply told they have to get to the other side and yet no map is given to them to aid their navigation of this perilous and potentially lethal zone.
Some of these hapless youngsters will luck their way through. But many more will perish piteously their loud screams unheard in the mind-numbing explosions ripping their innocent bodies to scattered tatters, seeming victims of a deranged beast.
Sadly many will not die alone but with innocent friends and relatives who will misguidedly plunge into the minefield to help, armed only with ignorance - missions of mercy cut short forever by more explosions. More casualties of the minefield of drug abuse.
All over Kenya the effects of these explosions are seen and heard but mostly not recognised for what they are - drug abuse!
The effects are seen in increased medical bills from ill health, stemming from failing organs to opportunistic infections as a result of weak immune systems brought about by persistent drug abuse. They are seen in motor vehicle crashes (not accidents, for taking drugs and getting behind the wheel is a pre-planned disaster merely waiting to happen) with their resultant mutilations a deaths of innocent passengers, pedestrians or occupants of other vehicles.
The increases in crime from robberies, to rape, violence including domestic, child abuse, family disintegration and resultant street kids culminating in street people and families. But still the explosions roar in countrywide schools unrest and school dropouts. These range from expulsions, to teen pregnancies to compulsive drug abuse.
Businesses are not spared either as absenteeism and sick-offs' are the order of the day. The result is lost productivity and increased medical bills respectively. There is resulting low staff morale as some staff get tired of carrying the extra load feeling resentment at the need to cover for their abusing work-mates.
Furthermore this simmering ill-feeling spills over to those who insist on smoking in the workplace as many non-smokers suffer silently as the administration has no policy on smoking.
Other non-smokers affected by the tobacco industry are the farmers exposed to toxic chemicals as well as nicotine as they tend to this lethal crop. Suffering a host of illnesses as a result, their children too are not only in the firing line of illness but are pulled out of school to work on this extremely labour intensive but poor paying (to the farmer) crop. No or sporadic school attendance - sentenced instead to perpetual ill health and child labour.
Then there is the deaths head of AIDS where in a University of Nairobi study done a few years ago found that more than 40 percent of those who had acquired this incurable disease in Kenya were under the influence of alcohol.
Yet the Kenyan government has not even began to compute the costs of the havoc wreaked by drugs in all spheres of our life. Indeed they have not even put in place mechanisms, which would be able to tally these losses, and thus come up with a counter-strategy to reduce these losses.
Most parents also are in the dark concerning drug abuse and haven't a clue where to begin to combat the devastation caused by these substances. These parents and guardians do not know how these drugs look, how to tell the signs and symptoms of a 'user' and many are even afraid to bring up the topic for ignorance breeds fear and silence. Collective silence.
Yet even concerning the drugs they do know namely alcohol and tobacco they seem to heave a unified sigh of relief feeling that these are "not too bad." That "it could be worse!" This false comfort that their children are 'only' taking alcohol and tobacco shows complete oblivion that these are two of the most dangerous drugs they could take.
All this while bhang plantations continue to thrive in the Mt. Kenya and Western regions will leaders periodically claiming that those behind these farms are powerful figures who are known but stopping just short of naming them.
Even as production of this illegal drug continues to thrive, expansion continues with a legal one - tobacco. In spite of the fact that in developing countries all kinds of fierce legislation is being put into place to curb the production, sale and consumption of tobacco the Kenyan Government has been hoodwinked by multinationals like BAT to expand the industry here.
They blithely refuse to look at the evidence placed under their noses laying out how these self same multinationals are relocating to developing countries who have nil or extremely weak laws governing the use of this apparently harmless drug but one which according to the World Health Organisation manages to kill half of all those who use it. This is a mind boggling four million people dying annually from tobacco related disease.
Miraa (khat) is another multi-billion shilling legal drug industry with adverse effects on the health of Kenyans but which no politician let alone the government dare touch if they hope to make it back to parliament in the next election. Indeed miraa is the quintessential hot potato tossed quickly from one hand to the next with none wanting to hold it long enough to get burnt.
So the growth and consumption goes on with the concomitant deleterious effects even as the government and its minions turn a blind eye.
Other drugs ranging from inhalants to prescription drugs are also abused this before we get to the more notorious drugs like heroin, mandrax and cocaine. Yet even though prescription drugs are heavily abused especially by those who have access to them like doctors, pharmacists and those who work in a medical environment, nothing is done to stem this rising disaster. Indeed it has been an open secret that many of these addicts start while in medical school.
We have no option but to declare publicly to all and sundry what few Kenyans have known for some time, - that drug abuse is a national disaster.
President Mwai Kibaki cannot take over a decade (like his predecessor retired President Daniel arap Moi did to declare HIV/AIDS a national disaster) to declare drug abuse a national disaster. Not when it is a key vector in the transmission of HIV/AIDS our only other finally declared national disaster.
Indeed this column is starting a campaign to have the president start and complete the process as a matter of urgency.
We need to look at our prisons, which are over-flowing with prisoners whose main problem is that they are addicts. Prisoners who should rightfully be in treatment for unless they learn to manage their addiction they will keep being re-arrested for it.
The Ministry of Health needs to finally take action on establishment of rehabilitation centres throughout the republic after first setting up the minimum standards to allow them to operate. Health Minister Charity Ngilu has immense powers invested in her docket to do exactly this - indeed these powers have been vested in the Ministry of Health for decades.
This newsletter will also seek to educate the Kenyan public on why they must support the clamour for drug abuse to be declared a national disaster even as it educates them on the different types of drugs, symptoms of abuse and how to help an addict. In short a map for they and their loved ones to navigate the mine field.
The young man mentioned above is still using for in spite of his father, initially being keen when he pleaded "what can I do?", still wallows in denial constantly believing the rationalisations his son, like all addicts always come up with to justify their usage.
So he continues in and out of school and now police cells. He has progressed to stealing and mugging ladies who reside in the estate. This after selling most of his own possessions and quite a few of his parents to the extent they lock the house when they are away at work, while he hangs around smoking bhang with some like minded dropouts who also reside in the same estate.
He will probably graduate to bigger crimes outside the estate as time goes on finally up to armed robbery. Finally he will be shot by the flying squad probably during a car-jacking attempt. And so his parents will bury him crying helplessly "we really tried! But what could we do?"
Even as the soil thuds on his coffin thousands of other Kenyan children would be facing their moment of reckoning- 'to use or not to use?' With no guidance or preparation. Truly, a National Disaster!
David Ogot Sr.
11.03.04
Nairobi, Kenya
The writer is a freelance journalist/producer specialising in drug-abuse prevention issues. Ogot who has personal experience with alcoholism can be reached at goinghomedotcom@yahoo.com , Website: www.goinghomedotcom.org .
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