Take the many stories that have been reported in the media about Batswana students studying abroad who have been arrested for drug use. While we do not have figures to back our fear that drug use is widespread, Botswana is a fast developing country, a city in the global village. Its also the case that students here at home are also into drugs.
And so are their brothers and sisters, and their aunts and uncles. More worryingly, drug use is no longer the preserve of the wealthy - as now and then we hear even about poor school children who are involved in drugs. The traditional wealthy/poor boundaries meant that only very few -the rich, could become addicts as they were the ones who could afford the drugs. When people are found to have taken illegal drugs this means there are those who sell, and there is a market. But then, there are obviously non-illegal drugs whose irresponsible use can be equally dangerous. Remember Michael Jackson? There is a clear indication that the drug picture that could have been presented 10 years back would probably have grown 10 times more over the same period. For many years we knew that young people in this country indulged in binge drinking. No one did anything about it. Now binge drinking is such a massive problem that it now proudly dares anyone who wishes to stem its tide of grief to come forward and see "how much muscle you got". And the country is now spending millions of Pula trying to educate people and prevent irresponsible drinking. We know, today that this country has a drug problem, we know there are people dying from drug use, but no one is doing anything about it. Will we wait until the figures get too large to ignore? Are we going to continue doing nothing until this turns into a massive problem? We call upon all relevant government structures to get to work and earnestly engage all stakeholders to address this looming crisis. We need more drug prevention, education and yes, recovery for the individual suffering from dependency. And we do have many drug addicts. Many of them helpless beyond the word - because there is no system in place to help them recover. A lot of them die. It is enough that we have for many years ignored and still ignore alcoholics, be they those who consume home-made concoctions or the well-to-do ones who can afford an expensive bottle of beer or wine. Let us not commit the same sin with drug addicts.
