Drug abuse rampant in schools
Friday, 10th October, 2008
E-mail article
Print article
A drug user sniffing cocaine
By Lydia Namubiru
“WHEN you come to see me on Thursday, bring some cigarettes and weed for me
please,” reads a text message from Mark a student of a Luwero boarding school.
Mark, a son of a legislator in a neighbouring country, is sending the message
to a friend of his who is about to join university. Weed is a word that
teenagers use to refer to marijuana.
Nineteen-year-old Mary (not real name), had more than a brush with drug use
while in O’level between 2003 and 2005.
“I started experimenting with drugs somewhere in S.2 during holidays. A group
of Sudanese friends introduced me to cocaine. We used to take whatever we came
across,” Mary recalls. After sometime, she started taking the drugs to school.
The friends did not sell them to her but asked her to sell to others. “They
would even visit me at school and bring some.” Over time, Mary introduced other
students to the habit.
One of those recruits, Judith, happened to be asthmatic. “The drugs used to
affect her badly. She would get bad asthma attacks. It made me feel bad but my
other friends were hardcore. They just encouraged her.”
One day during the holidays, Judith took the drugs and got a fatal attack. For
a full minute, Mary cannot speak. Sighing heavily she continues in a voice so
shaky that she is barely audible. “Her parents called us and told us that she
was sick and admitted to hospital. We all knew why she was sick. We went to see
her. A few days later, she died.
That was the turning point for me. I decided to quit that day. I felt so
guilty. God this is so difficult …” Mary trails off.
She was able to quit over a period of six months but today, two years later,
she still breaks down while narrating the experience. “Many of my friends had
abortions. Many times they slept with complete strangers after using drugs,”
Mary recounts.
Tom (not real name), a 19-year-old who just completed his S.6 vacation is still
battling a drug problem that he picked up seven years ago.
“We have a serious drug use problem in schools but it is a hidden habit. School
administrators will tell you it is not there but when you interact with the
students, they open up and tell you that a number of their colleagues are using
drugs,” says Rogers Mutaawe, the programme officer at Uganda Youth Development
Link.
“We have a very serious drug problem especially with young people. Most of the
people we arrest for drug use are youths,” Robert Ojaba, the deputy head of the
CID’s anti-narcotics unit, confirms.
Interacting with teenagers in and around Kampala, Saturday Vision got many
testimonies of drug use in schools especially in the upmarket private schools
and in some leading government schools.
“There is a student in my former school who is well known for being a drug
dealer. His source throws the drugs over the fence and he distributes them in
school,” says an S.6 vacist who was a prefect at a boarding school in Kibuli.
According to Mutaawe, Ugandan students mostly abuse marijuana (cannabis) and
alcohol. “Waragi packed in sachets is easy for them to conceal, it is cheap and
readily available,”he explains. Possession and use of marijuana is growing in
Uganda.
In 2006, the Police arrested 913 people in connection with marijuana. The
figure went up to 1,138 in 2007 according to the statistics available from the
anti narcotics unit.
Ojaba says most of the people arrested were drug users aged between 15 and 35
years. In 2006, 49 acres of marijuana plantations were destroyed, while 80
acres were destroyed last year alone. Harder drugs like cocaine and heroine are
not as readily available, although students said some foreign students use
them.
Students also revealed that kuber is a widely abused substance in schools. To
ingest the drug discreetly, students normally place the sachet below their
tongues.
In some of the schools, guards, cooks and other staff members bring the drugs
into the school and sell them to the students. A roll of opium on average costs
sh1,000 and one can get fresh leaves of marijuana for as little as sh200.
In one Entebbe school, students buy drugs from fishermen, according to a former
student. Students also escape from school to buy the drugs or ask visiting
friends to bring them in.
“Where you have day scholars as well as boarders, the day scholars bring the
drugs in. You cannot check every day scholar’s bag everyday,” Mutaawe says.
Ironically, students take the drugs mostly during the day, because security is
tight at night.
Outside school, users get the drugs from both upmarket and shoestring hang
outs. “Men with the stuff hang around popular hang outs. You just go over and
ask one of them if they have the ‘other stuff’. If you speak Swahili, the
transaction will be much easier,” one regular buyer reveals. He says in the
upmarket hangouts, one often needs to be introduced to the dealer by an old
user. But in areas like Bwaise, locals sell the drugs with little discretion.
A teenager in Bugolobi reveals another trick. “You stand at the taxi stage with
a sh1,000 note dangling from your fingers. Someone will notice, approach you
from behind, press the drugs into your palm and take the note.
Why students are abusing drugs
The pressure to excel is one of the foremost reasons why students have turned
to drugs according to Mutaawe. “During our intervention programmes, users say
the drugs help them stay awake for hours so they can read long into the night.
You know everyone these days wants their name in the papers,” Mutaawe explains.
He also believes that the lack of co-curricular programmes contributes to drug
problem. “Look at all these city schools housed in storeyed building without
even a playground for the students to release stress or kill boredom by
playing! That is why they are resorting to drugs.”
On the other hand, student users, school administrators and police officers
blame it on peer pressure. “One will see how drugs give another the courage to
do extraordinary things like going to discos. He too would like to do these
things without fear so he starts using the drugs,” Ojaba explains.
The laxity of the law on offenders is also to blame. “The National Drug
Possession and Abuse act is the mildest law we have in this country. It sets no
minimum fine for offenders and a maximum fine of sh1m. Even this is at the
discretion of the magistrate. Many times offenders just go off with a caution,”
Ojaba laments.
It is also worth noting that many drugs that students tend to abuse are not
even classified as illegal by the law or the law allows room for oversights.
Kuber is sold over supermarket counters, a young person in Uganda is never
asked to prove his age before buying alcohol from any outlet, khat, although a
brain stimulant is not illegal and there is no age limit on smoking.
__________________________________________________________________
Connect with friends from any web browser - no download required. Try the new
Yahoo! Canada Messenger for the Web BETA at
http://ca.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php_______________________________________________
Ugandanet mailing list
Ugandanet@kym.net
http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet
% UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including
attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way.
---------------------------------------
