Alarm over rising drug abuse in Marsabit schools

There is a growing concern in Marsabit County as drug trafficking escalates even among primary school learners.

Marsabit Central education officer Hussein Arub decried the county's significant drug and substance proliferation to an extent that even school-age adolescents get adversely affected by the menace.

“We’re concerned by the growing drug and substance abuse cases among students in our schools and should no timely intervention be made, we fear for the devastating impacts that might be reported in this region,” Mr Arub said.

Speaking during a drug and substance awareness campaign attended by students from the sub-county organized by the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) at County Commissioner’s office, Mr Arub revealed that even young students in Grades 6, 7, and Standard Eight had begun experimenting with bhang, alcohol and other drugs.

He intimated that more than six cases of students abusing drugs had been reported in schools in Marsabit central this year forcing even the security officers to get involved.

He further raised concern that the rates of drug use were increasing among the adolescents in primary and secondary schools.

For instance, a 13-year-old student was recently arrested for influencing a fellow 17-year-old colleague into smoking bhang during school hours.

In another incident, two primary school learners were also arrested for having bhang in school.

Also, two secondary schools in the sub-county were compelled to suspend their Form Two students for getting involved in drug and substance abuse.

He attributed the challenges to the complex setting of the county that made it even impossible for the security officers to completely tackle the menace of drug abuse.

Marsabit borders Ethiopia which produces cannabis sativa on a large scale thus making it easy for the peddlers to sneak it into the country and sell it even in schools.

The drug and substance challenge is usually handled by the school authorities and when it stretches to an extreme, it is left to the police and is regarded as a criminal offense.

Constant exposure

Dakabaricha Secondary School teacher Elizabeth Orre said curiosity and need to experiment with drugs and constant exposure in the streets of Marsabit town was blamed for the menace.

She observed that students abusing drugs and substances revealed that they developed memory distortion, perceptions, and sensations by getting the false feeling of performing excellently in academics.

She held that the socio-scenario that peddling bhang use with being intelligent or genius academically placed a good number of students at risk of getting entangled in drug and substance abuse.

“The adolescents who indulge in these risky behaviors are in most cases in constant conflict with school authorities, and parents, and suffer from poor self-control,” she said.

Drug and substance abuse were also at high risk of indulging in reckless and unprotected sex, and violence.

She said that the availability of cash to the youth as pocket money or travel allowances especially if too much can be used to buy drugs.

Drug prevention programs in schools are worrying considering the meager knowledge given to teachers on drug and substance abuse which does not allow them to cater to specialized intervention.

Marsabit Central Assistant County Commissioner Samuel Chepkonga explained that it was not easy to quantify the actual scope and nature of drug and substance abuse among students in the county saying that most adolescents try out alcohol or any other drug secretly while at their institution.

“Investigations are ongoing to smoke out school security officers, janitors, and school cooks who collaborated and connived to clandestinely transact drugs in schools,” he said while decrying critical hindrances such as the vastness of the county, porous borders, and inadequate anti-drug and substance awareness campaigns in the region's fight against drugs and substances.

Mr Chepkonga appealed to the government and other stakeholders to develop programs specifically designed to educate students on the effects of substance or drug abuse.

He also appealed to support persons who are affected by drug and substance abuse, calling for the establishment of a rehabilitation center to be used in helping the affected persons as the whole county lacked one.

Marsabit Central OCS Nathan Obonyo also decried shifts in the tact used by the barons in trafficking drugs in the region.

Drug peddlers, he said, kept on devising new methods of trafficking the drugs to beat the police at their game.

“The state must ensure that security officers in Marsabit were provided with modern technology, sniffer dogs, and adequate vehicles to enable them to combat the drug menace in the county,” he said, adding that NACADA had begun bringing all the partners on board to avert further drug and substance spread in schools.

He revealed that his office had made more than five arrests of students abusing drugs and substances in the recent past.

NACADA local representative Fredrick Ochieng said he was inspired to carry out drug and substance campaigns in the regional schools after witnessing his former classmate who had been turned into a zombie by indulging in second-generation liquor falling off a lorry and dying instantly.

He was also concerned that Marsabit town was becoming a home to a big number of mad people who had been adversely affected by drug and substance abuse.