Facts emerging indicate that new phenomena crimes such as people wanting to rape their mothers or other close relatives which were previously almost non-existent but are now on the increase are all drug related. This was revelation was made by the Programme Coordinator, Capacity Building office of the National Coordinator, National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NACADA) Mr. Cyrus Gituai as the first session of the NACADA Rift Valley awareness tour got underway in Nakuru.

This first session of day one in Nakuru was targeting Provincial and District Security Committees, Prisons Commandants and Heads of Departments. Changing their existing perceptions and prejudices and bringing them up to speed on new developments on alcohol and other drug related issues is imperative in the fight against drug demand reduction.

Addressing the attentive audience Dr. Mohamed Hassan head of Preventive and Promotive Health at the Ministry of Health (MoH) emphasised that "a person who is on drug abuse should be treated like someone with malaria.

He further pointed out the extent of lack of drug information in the country when he declared that before the National Coordinator NACADA came to the MoH, "we had not really conceptualised in a holistic manner how MoH would respond to drug abuse." Today you will get a young doctor who will not even know how to tell if someone is abusing drugs.

At the same time he warned, "what returns we get in terms of tax is inconsequential in compared to the problems caused and treating the effects of alcohol and tobacco."

Dr. Eric Achoki a NACADA consultant gave a gruesome example of this as he described how the active ingredient in nicotine which is what hooks you to cigarettes in the first place, compromises the supply of blood to the extremities of your body so that they started rotting. This led of necessity to them being amputated and is the reason several people who had lost limbs after smoking were suing the British American Tobacco (BAT) company.

How he posed could BAT keep trying to fool the public by saying they were selling a commercial product yet cigarettes were an addictive drug? They also contained harmful substances as one of the main uses of nicotine when not addicting you to cigarettes, is in the manufacture of insecticides.

Dr. Achoki, a pharmacist noted that even ordinary prescription drugs were being abused with one such being from the opiod group namely codeine, which was an active ingredient in cough mixtures. He cautioned parents to be aware if a child kept on asking for cough mixture. Codeine is a derivative of morphine, which is made from heroin.

The National Coordinator NACADA Mr. Joseph Kaguthi warned that drugs have no constitution as they do not only affect the wealthy but all and sundry.

He hoped that in twelve months hence he would be able to come back and see if there had been any progress as a result of the in formation they had now been armed with.

Peter Kathamu the D/OCPD Molo commented that currently Kenyans seemed to be leading a very non-African lifestyle and this could be contributing to the current proliferation of alcohol and drug use. For a young man to even taste beer in the earlier days was anathema.

Pointing an accusing finger at television and the local media he castigated the continuous advertisements of ‘Safari Cane’ distilled alcoholic beverages and yet nobody reacted to this least of all parents. He concluded that maybe the solution lay in getting counselors to talk to the students about the inherent dangers of using alcohol and other drugs.

D.O. 1 Kajiado George Okello was skeptical about the integrity of some of the government officers on the District Security Committees. Thus unless changes were made, there would still be a problem.

As for why the government had failed to get rid of chang'aa is that these officers go to distillers and take protection fee how then could this be tackled? "There are even Chiefs who take chang’aa and we have reported, but nothing happens." He felt that unless these officers were dealt with they could not move on integrity.

The National Coordinator however noted that of all the comments and suggestions on the way forward being made, no participant seemed to be addressing the role of parents and their responsibility.

Kaguthi explained that punishment was not the solution, which he said rested in finding the root cause why people use alcohol and other drugs in the first place. Why were parents not talking to their children? "Arresting and taking to courts and punishments are not the way - and you know how our courts are," he ended amid laughter.

Parliament he went on had done its job and the relevant laws were in place. "Our problem is that we have weak kneed officers" who cannot enforce these laws. NACADA's job was to empower them with knowledge the rest was up to them.

"You have the two most powerful officers to assist you, the Public Health Officer and the Officer Commanding Station (OCS)." If these two did their jobs properly you would not have such a big problem. These two officers can shut down places and have the power of arrest. "What more do you need?"

But many officers are not doing their jobs an indignant Kaguthi continued, citing the ‘smoking in public places ban. "Yet someone is smoking in a matatu (informal Kenyan public minibus taxis usually recklessly driven) yet next to them is a pregnant lady and outside is a traffic officer seeing this but does nothing."

At the same time these matatu's were also being used to ferry bhang (cannabis sativa) and what was need were "some brave officers to arrest these vehicles so that they could be forfeited to the State for carrying or ferrying drugs."

The Deputy PC, who was standing in for PC Raburu, said this exercise must be a serious continuos exercise and that alcohol and other drug use should also be declared a national disaster. District Commissioner’s were supposed to hold four barazas (public meetings with the people) a week so the issue of drugs should be included.

The National Coordinator concluded that in order to be effective they should pick the top five areas to move on and base the criteria on areas that were immediately "actionable, realisable and whose results were measurable."