COMMENT: Let’s stem drug abuse

Society’s fabric is slowly wasting away due to drug abuse, and many futures are slowly but surely being blighted by the drugs scourge.

We have heard the authorities’ pronouncements on the issue of drugs but we are yet to feel the full weight of a multi-sectoral onslaught on the drug dealers.

It would appear frightened communities still discuss the issue in hushed tones for fear of offending the drug lords and bearing the consequences.

We hear that drugs are so readily available and in all varieties on almost all the streets in Bulawayo.

Infact, so widespread is the practice that many streets have been taken over by the dealers, in the same way that foreign currency dealers are found everywhere.

The results are also all over for everyone to see with strange behaviours now being experienced more often, more young people seemingly dazed in the streets and the consumption of illicit brews in the streets, not to mention the cough syrup whose bottles litter the alleys in the cities.

We need action to be taken to tackle the supply network since the sellers have grown brazen and now conduct their trade in broad daylight in the centre of the city.

And the city centre happens to be the place where young people congregate on their way from schools around the city.

It is indeed no surprise that we are seeing rising cases of violence at schools and the stabbings witnessed at some of the learning institutions could be a result of drug abuse.

When crime rises in a community, residents are quick to shift the blame to the police. However, these sellers and buyers of drugs and other illicit substances live among us, and we know them. As a community, we need to take action and rescue the future of our country from possible ruin due to the rate at which alcoholism and drug abuse are taking over our people, ruining relationships and destroying family ties. It should be noted that drugs are a billion-dollar industry for some, and that the fight against drugs can never be a stroll in the park.

There is already a growing army of addicts that now provides a ready and captive market for the suppliers who desire to convert even more daily hence growing their market size.

Communities and the police need to come up with new strategies and a serious witness protection programme might be needed since dealers have been emboldened by their free reign in areas that are now deemed hot spots, spreading their tentacles through recruitment of young people as their runners.

Let us go beyond the whispers, the pointing of fingers at vehicles that are always stationed at certain points to actually reporting and having these dealers arrested.

We need to establish trust between police and the public since residents say most of the dealers are picked up only to be released without charge.
Let us all say NO to drugs.