The Phone Rang.
“Hello, madam. Is this Mrs Johnson?” a cheerful man’s voice says.
“Yee-s-s-s,” Mrs Johnson responded.
“Sorry for calling so early in the morning. But lemme get straight to the point,” the voice continued. “My name is Jacob and I am calling from the Alcoholics Anonymous. We help addicts become ex-addicts. Nigel, is he your son?
“Is there something wrong?” she asked, with a worried voice. “Is he okay?”
“Nothing serious but if you could come to our clinic and take Nigel home. He has been with us for the last three days.”
She got the directions.
“I am on my way.”
Nigel’s case is just one of many similar stories in the formerly mixed race neighbourhood of Braeside in the capital Harare.
Drug and substance abuse.
Some drug and substance users later become physically and psychologically dependent on drugs, their normal functioning is disturbed and this is the moment in which society begins to talk about drugs – when they see the problems related to people that are dependent.
Nigel knows the effects of drug use, abuse and misuse.
Speaking to The Afronews at his place recently, Nigel insists he is just a recreational user of marijuana and not an addict.
“I have never had any problems with Mary-Jane except from the police always demanding small bribes,” he swears. “I walk down the street and they wave at me – even when I am smoking one!” he says proudly.
On the recent near-fatal experience that sent him into unconsciousness for more than two days, he says that the marijuana he took at that party that night “wasn’t mine but I was just given,” he says.
“I learnt my lesson. I have to stick to my principles. Blessed is the hand that giveth than the one that taketh,” he smiles, escalating into a paroxysm of laughter.
Drug humour.
Mrs Johnson who has sitting silently all the while goes out along goes out of the room, not hiding her fury.
Experts are looking deeper to some of the sociology driving the spike in drug abuse.
Wilson Box, projects executive director at the Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drugs Network (ZICILIDN) in Harare, says a lack of wellness opportunities for our youths – especially urban – facing a host of hardships including poverty, unemployment and homelessness is helping drive drug abuse and misuse leading to addiction.
“Amid the social and economic challenges many of our youths have lost their traditional bearings and responsibilities – making them even more vulnerable in these times,” he says.
ZICILIDN, which works with drug users, has called for a review of policies that recognise the health rights of drug users – especially the youth.
“There is need for engagement and connecting people to healthy relationships, and not just criminalise and stigmatise those who use drugs,” explains Box.
A research and survey on challenges facing the country’s youth has found that there is a high level of drug and substance abuse as well as “anecdotal evidence pointing to high levels of mental health issues”.
Dr Joel Malaba, the lead consultant on the research, says the country needs to act urgently.
“As a country we need to arrest and curb drug and substance abuse and address mental health issues as well,” he told a National Youth Council meeting recently.
Social worker Gumisayi Bonzo, says youths, mostly young men, take bigger risks with drugs as they believe they can handle it – just as Nigel had told us earlier: “I have no problem with my drugs – I can stop if I want!”
But Bonzo, from Transmart, a community-based organization that works with key populations and vulnerable groups in the country, says the state of abuse is rampant across the youth both in and out of school.
“And the impact is heavy (sic),” she further tells this paper on email responses to questions on the spike in drug use. “45 percent of our mental health admissions are due to substance abuse.”
Daunting statistics.
The use of drugs is highly prevalent in Zimbabwe, yet the current landscape of drug policy and practice is failing individuals, families, communities and society at large.
These trends are occurring despite policies and practices promoting prohibition and abstinence, says Bonzo, adding that drug use is on the rise and the lack of facilities offering detoxification services present a challenge.
Marijuana, Hystalix, Dysapam, Broncleer and various smuggled concoctions are some of the substances that have flooded the market as drugs of choice.
There are also reports of high-end drugs like cocaine and heroin starting to enter the local market.
“But the major challenge is lack of a drug master plan even a draft has been on the table for a while – more than a decade in fact,” she says, lamenting the slow pace of reforms, “although civil society organisations have offered to step in but . . .”
Tungamirai Zimonte, who works with ZICILIDN, says the country needs to revise its programmes and policies on handling issues of drugs use.
“Let’s engage users and hit on effects,” he posits.
He categorically contends that despite the signals of reform, “we have failed as a country in our approach, with drug use met with either punishment or treatment aimed at abstinence”.
“In order to address drug use, we need to move away from this punitive, zero-tolerance perspective to a more humane and accepting public health model that incorporates harm reduction and social work philosophies,” he adds.
If there is a single story on drug users, its theme is: stigma.
Mrs Johnson returns and further tells The Afronews she has been trying as a mother to stop her son from taking drugs to no avail.
“I have tried to stop him from taking these shit drugs and alcohol,” she says (pronouncing it as alkyhall). She wonders aloud as she goes out once more and asking no one in particular:
“What kind of woman will stay married to such useless man?”