Drug and substance abuse in youths — a scourge eating away moral fibre

Vincent Gono, Features Editor
“YOU are lucky I am not too drunk today. I am a bit reasonable and exercise restraint. We usually beat and search cheeky old people like you who walk around carrying the ‘father’ tag. You are a father to your children and not to everyone you meet! I don’t have a father like you, after all you are very stupid,” said Jimmy (30) * — a tout as he spit in the direction of an old man with cotton tuft beard.

The grey-haired old man’s crime was that he had refused with his bag that Jimmy wanted to load at the back of a car that was going to Dadaya Mission on the outskirts of Zvishavane Town. The two had squared off in a tug-of war for the bag and that had incensed Jimmy. After all, the old man was looking for transport to Mbalabala from where he would hike to Gwanda Town.

The tout whose work station is a place called Number 1 along Bulawayo Road in the mining town of Zvishavane in the Midlands Province is evidently inebriated and could hardly stand. The stink of sweat, dirt, smoke, mbanje and beer is all that one’s nostrils could uncomfortably contend with when one gets at an unimportant distance from him.

His eyes are blood red and his fleshy but heavily scarred face shadows and crumbles as he talks with horizontal furrows forming on his forehead as he struggles to keep his eyes open. When he grins or at least smiles, he exposes the tobacco coloured of what remains of his teeth and one needs to stand not too close to him so that they don’t attract the drops of saliva that involuntarily “rain” out of his mouth as he speaks.

His hair is unkempt. In fact, everything about him is. Instead of sitting nicely on the frame of what remains of a car seat, he crumbles like an empty sack while mumbling a mouthful of obscenities to a woman vendor who was verbally rebuking him.

Jimmy’s behaviour is not unique to touts in the mining town of Zvishavane but is common in all urban areas and even in the countryside where drug or alcohol abuse among youths seem to be fashionable.

“You see we don’t need much to get drunk. We are a community here and we share everything from cigarettes, mbanje (dagga), beer, Broncleer and we sometimes use the white residue found in used diapers that we mix with water and boil. So, at times we get drunk at no cost,” said Jimmy’s colleague who identified himself as Musa.

Their community whose common denominator is illicit drug abuse is not kindly disposed to other people. They seem gifted with the art of knowing people who can bring them trouble by simply looking at them and so, they don’t harass anyone with intent or reckless abandon.

“By nature of Zvishavane being a mining town, drugs are not something alien. Gold panners (most of them youths and school drop-outs) buy and use them and the supply is constant. We have got everything from the cheapest to the most expensive ones, if you go to the pits you will be shocked, and no police arrest people there,” added Musa.

Abuse of drugs and substances by mostly youths is a scourge that the country is grappling with and there is concordance from stakeholders that urgent action is needed to remedy the youths who are the future leaders from the societal malady.

Association of Apostolic Churches in Zimbabwe president Bishop Tsungai Vushe told Sunday News in an interview that the growing culture of drug and substance abuse among the youths was worrying and should be a national concern.

“The increasing number of youths abusing drugs and substances in the country is sad. Last Saturday which was the last day of ZITF a number of youths, some of school going age could be seen in town heavily intoxicated and one wonders if the country is investing its future in the hands of the new generation of drunkards and substance abusers.

“Our youths should be taught to be responsible citizens and everyone should be on board from the church, the home, school and society at large. Our politicians should play ball too and enact as well as implement policies that speak to the ills of having a society of drug abusers. The days of rhetoric should be over because this is a serious issue,” said Bishop Vushe.

He added that it was ideological social institutions like the church and the home that were supposed to provide the moral compass from where a person was moulded into a responsible citizen.

“As the church, we are equally worried by this growing trend. Due to economic challenges the family or the home has become a loose institution where parents will be in the diaspora and children are left with no one to care for. They become vulnerable to peer pressure and end up in anti-social activities.

“Long periods of being dormant during the Covid-19 lockdown period was also a dangerous period. An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. A number of youths became socialised to drugs and became addicts during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

The other cause is the death of infrastructure in our towns and cities where the youths are no longer able to visit parks, libraries, gyms, arts centres and other sporting facilities where they can while-up time away from the drugs and substances that harm them,” he said.

Bishop Vushe applauded President Mnangagwa for his stance against drug abuse among youths saying his commitment should be supported by everyone in the country.

“The highest authority has raised concern over the issue and has been rallying people to address it with the urgency it deserves. And as the church we are taking it up and advocating for a morally upright society,” he said.

President Mnangagwa has launched a National Anti-Drug and Substance Abuse Campaign and has put in place an inter-ministerial committee on drug and substance abuse. He has also established a national drug abuse fund.

He has expressed his commitment to deal with the drug menace among youths saying his government would do everything to fight drug abuse and exposing cartels peddling drugs such as guka, bronco, glue, musombodhia, cocaine, heroin, crystal meth (mutoriro).

The Government, he said, was seized with reviewing the Dangerous Drugs Act to meet and deal with obtaining realities in tackling drug-related issues. He has also issued a stern warning to drug producers, peddlers and abusers, saying that the long arm of the law will soon catch up with them. The Government has also declared drug and substance abuse a national disaster.

While applauding the stance by the Government, experts, however, believe stakeholders in the fight against drugs should not be reactive but proactive.

“In the case of the youths taking a substance in diapers, it’s a manifestation of how youths are researching substances which make them high while we are not researching on the countermeasures to discourage our youths.

There are legal gaps which the youths are taking advantage of and they are sidelining drugs which attract court action for the ones that are not on the list. The gap becomes wide in sodium polyacrylate because diapers or pads are legal products found everywhere in public,” said the expert, adding that the process will give Jimmy and his crew some lifeline.