National Assembly Departmental Committee on Health has urged government agencies to seal loopholes used to smuggle drugs into the country.
The legislators came face to face with the ghastly truth of the drug menace in Mombasa, when they visited drug dens in the town’s CBD and the Miritini rehabilitation center.
Members of the parliamentary Health Committee present included Vice Chairperson Patrick Munene (Chuka Igambang’ombe), Mathenge Duncan (MP Nyeri Town), Dr. James Nyikal Seme), Joshua Oron (Kisumu Central) and Antony Kibagendi ( MP Kitutu Chache South).
Munene said youths are not only affected by alcoholism but also hard drugs, adding that, “We can’t be handling rehabilitation and bury our heads in the sand that hard drugs are not in this country because today I have seen young people with cocaine and heroin and the question that begs is where it is coming from?”
He urged the government to crack the whip on drug barons and the sources of the drugs destroying the lives of young Kenyans.
“We can’t continue massaging the problem and hiding our heads in the sand. If it’s the problem of alcohol, we know the biggest problem of alcohol is illegal ethanol in this country. We know the people selling illegal ethanol in this country,” said the Vice Chairperson.
He added that government agencies have intelligence and cannot fail to know where the heroine they saw in the CBD comes from. “Until we address the source then we are not out of the woods,” he said.
Munene noted that HIV cannot be isolated with drug addiction through injection, thus the need for concerted effort to tackle the challenge.
The MPs were impressed by the rehabilitation of drug addicts at Miritini. They encourage other addicts to seek treatment.
Munene said drug addicts are not supposed to be isolated by society. The MPs are committed to supporting rehabilitation programmes and making sure the Miritini facility gets adequate resources.
“Not everybody will be able to come to Miritini from across the country. We want the facility to trickle down to regions, then down to counties because this problem cut across regions not only in Mombasa,” said the Vice Chairperson.
Munene said of late there is an increase of HIV among young people thus need to have national conversations on the epidemic not to claw back gains made over the years.
“Make it a priority we are going to where we came from which is a sad state of affairs,” he encouraged.
Dr. Ruth Laibon, CEO of the National Syndemic Disease Control Council (NSDCC) said injecting drug practices is one of the key contributing factors to HIV/AIDs in Kenya especially among men and boys.
She said, “The prevalence is about 18.7 per cent for people who inject drugs on HIV and that is quite high compared to other populations.”
On his part, Nyeri Town MP Mathenge Duncan called for the decentralization of government chemists for the fight against illicit drugs to be meaningful.
“It’s one of the areas that we noted a weakness and as parliament we are pushing for the devolution of government chemist from Nairobi first into regions and later to each county,” he said.
By Sadik Hassan
