By Chief Alhaji Thonkla Bangura
There has to be a bold proclamation against those milking the welfare of young minds in Sierra Leone through the lucrative business of dangerous substances like KUSH !
It is conspicuous that, there is an unprecedented global availability of drugs supply than ever before but the National Drugs Control Act 2008 set out draconian measures to crackdown and deter the emergence of drugs like KUSH of which has triggered a disturbing mental health crises and young minds that are addicted to these substances are behaving like binge ZOMBIES. The cocktail of these drugs is rattling the current enforcement strategies designed to curb the KUSH epidemic feeding the reprehensible tolerance, laissez-faire approach towards hard drugs and the culture to trivialize it across ghettos and streets of Sierra Leone.
The 2008 Act “ prescribes mandatory imprisonment of not less than five (5) years in behind bars for the possession and use of hard drugs in Sierra Leone “.
Section 2 of the National Drugs Control Act 2008 established the National Drugs Enforcement Agency tasked inter alia to enforce section 7 which entails that, “ A person who without lawful authority: (a) prepares, extracts, manufactures, produces or cultivates a prohibited drug;”
(b)” collect, transports,imports,exports, transship or transmits any prohibited drugs;”
(c) “ supplies, administers, sells, exposes or offers for sale or otherwise deal in or with any prohibited drug commit an offense and is liable on conviction to life imprisonment” !
The current trend of KUSH freely available makes a travesty of the National Drugs Control Act 2008 as a mere lip service and a sleeping law overdue for the dustbin.
The scale of traumatized citizens left with severe anxiety and depression after the civil war, the Ebola depression coupled with mudslides disaster have not been adequately addressed and now we are wrestling with another national mental health crisis produced by KUSH which is debilitating an overwhelmed mental health services put together to address mental illness.
KUSH mixed with human bones is dangerously damaging the youthful outlook of our country that is tumbling into uncharted territory of drugs cocktail never seen before.
If there is any political desire to combat this menace, well KUSH has overran that political appetite and currently dictating the terms of drugs enforcement across streets of the country.
Civil Society Groups whom in reality should be seen holding government to account on such lapses are currently busy campaigning for political appointments and are trapped in a state of oblivion cluelessly clueless about their advocacy responsibilities.
However, the MEDIA which is the FOURTH Estate or Fourth Power armed with colossal advocacy vuvuzela likened to projectile missile is cunningly highlighting the unprecedented prevalent of these dangerous drugs consuming the minds and welfare of our FUTURE GENERATION.
The established Drugs Control Agency and law enforcement authorities TASKED to enforce these draconian laws have been pepper sprayed and therefore cannot see neither can they nip the flow of illegal narcotics substances and criminals importing these dangerous drugs into a country struggling to keep her head above sea level.
The law enforcement agencies must retake the streets with a new groundbreaking strategy and must be seen as the NEW SHERIFF in TOWN to confront drugs warlords and gangs destroying vulnerable lives of young people who are exposed to these dangerous substances due to generic reasons one of them is absolute saturated poverty.
In concluding, those in positions of trust and authority should seriously commits themselves to crackdown heavily on traffickers importing these cocktail of dangerous substances threatening national security and public health and also significantly invest in the process of drug treatments and rehabilitation services to mitigate the impact of drugs abuse on society and engage with other stakeholders particularly parents and the private sector that’s provides training and jobs to distract young minds from falling into drugs traps and STOP KUSH smoking the FUTURE of our children whilst we are standing helplessly with our eyes popping out !!!
Alhaji Thonkla is a pleb columnist.
