We have drug crisis in our hands

Mmegi Editor | Tuesday August 30, 2016 11:07

If the police can confiscate such a large consignment in one weekend, in one area – Palapye – then we should all wake up and accept that the situation has gotten out of control. Dagga is a common drug that is easily accessible even to teenagers who are still in school.

At a recent meeting at St Josephs College, the school head indicated that the biggest challenge they are facing is the abuse of dagga by some of their students. She indicated that there are habitual offenders who are regularly caught in possession of the drug which they could be selling to others.

It has also been revealed that Sbrana Psychiatric Hospital in Lobatse is facing a congestion of patients and most of them are victims of drug abuse. The problem does not discriminate, as men and women are equally affected. We therefore call upon our legislators to tighten laws to introduce harsher penalties against culprits, as it is clear that the current laws are not prohibitive. The penalties should differ according to the amount of dagga the individual was found in possession of.

If we can introduce harsh penalties against poachers, then surely we should be in a position to save human lives by imposing heavy penalties against drug lords and peddlers. We cannot sit back and behave as if it is business as usual when it is not. There are many entry points for this country, which are used by thousands of people on a daily basis. It is therefore disturbing that so many kilograms of dagga were found in just one swoop. We also call on the authorities to procure more technology to make it easy to detect drugs; technology similar to scanners used by at Botswana Revenue Service at the country’s borders.

We hope that the incident in question should send warning bells to the authorities for them to take action before it is too late. Parents should also monitor their children and report any suspicious behaviour to the social workers who are trained to identify drug users at early stages.  In Taiwan drug possession is punishable by death. We have to do something before it is too late.

Today’s thought

“Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self esteem.” 

- Kurt Cobain