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By Elvis Dumba
CHNHOYI- The Ministry of Health Care and has called upon communities to take action and become pro-active in ending the substance abuse scourge which has affected many communities.
Tichaona Mahachi, Mashonaland West Provincial Mental Health Manager made the remarks during a Zimbabwe Union of Journalists community dialogue in Chinhoyi recently.
“Community and the media has a role to stop the substance abuse challenges especially by young people by taking action on the scourge as most of the substances being abused are easily found in our communities,” he said.
Mahachi said the media should continue highlighting the dangers of drug abuse as well stopping the easy supply of the drugs through coming up with ways of exposing drug peddlers.
“We are seeing the lives of our children going down the drain through substance abuse through peer pressure and sometimes the media has been found wanting on such issues as it come up with advertisements that encourages substance abuse, the media should take a leading role in the combat of substance abuse in our communities through education of the dangers and help through exposing those in the communities who are supplying these drugs.”
Mahachi said some people have to go through rehabilitation programs to recover from the effects of drug abuse with substance induced psychosis challenges being on the increase in the country especially in high density suburbs.
“We have witnessed a steady increase of induced psychosis challenges as a result of substance abuse where some of our community members will be addicted to drugs and if you notice we are even seeing mental health challenged community members and increase in our communities and the media should tackle the scourge holistically,” he urged.
Media practitioners were urged to make enforcement agencies accountable on dealing with substance abuse scourge.
“Communities are slowly losing confidence in the law enforcement agencies as we are not seeing much action on stopping the substance scourge as its now very easy to walk into an community and manage to get some of these abused substances and we are not seeing these drug peddlers who are usually known being stopped and this is where the media comes in by exposing such issues,” he said.
Mahachi said some of the abused substances include anti-retroviral viral medications such as efavirenz which young people are sniffing.
During the same meeting 46 years old divorcee, Shorai Chigwajara shared how it took her three years going through a painful rehabilitation process from substance abuse after she turned into drugs in an effort to deal with personal stress.
“Was divorced twelve years ago and after my divorce I turned into drug abuse to relief stress as a result of the divorce, I went to Mozambique where I entered into drug trafficking business as I would supply the Zimbabwe market and I was hooked on various drugs such as “black mpela which is a mixture of roasted marijuana seeds and popcorn which I would eat and also sniffed something called “kamthanzi which helped me be unconscious for more than twenty four hours as I would try to escape from stress but the more I took these, the more I wanted more resulting in spending more than what I was earning from the drug trafficking business,” she narrated.
Chigwajara said her business started on a downward spiral and she took a bold stand to quit the drug use which was not easy as she had to work through her addiction for three years with her health affected through the effects of withdrawal.
“It was not easy as I would be tempted to go back to the drugs and another reason besides my business going down I witnessed some of my customers here in Zimbabwe succumbing to various health complications as a result of the drug abuse and I decided to quit,”she said.
Zimbabwe has become a thriving market for various drugs and alcoholic products which are easily found in various communities by substance abusers.