War against drugs reach climax

OFFICIALS in the province have until June 29 to formulate and constitute district
drug and substances abuse committees to work on weeding out drug dealers and
users.
The Mashonaland Central Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution,
Senator Monica Mavhunga, has given her district development co-ordinators across
the province’s eight districts the ultimatum.
Pursuant to the National Committee on Drug and Substance Abuse inception
meeting held on May 24 at Rainbow Towers Hotel, Cabinet at its meeting held on
May 30 called for the formation of the same committee at provincial cascading to
village level.
The committees will work on identifying entry points, suppliers and how the drugs
move there by enforcing the law.
They will also work on creating and developing empowerment avenues for youths to
drive them away from drugs while improving their livelihoods.
The committees will also look on treatment ways for drug abusers, developing
rehabilitation centres as well as providing essential mental health care counselling
services.
Drugs and substances abusers have become a real menace to the community with
some of these abusers becoming dangerous to the extent of getting involved in
thefts, muggings and robbery.
Speaking as she addressed the district development co-ordinators at her
Mutungagore offices on Thursday, Minister Mavhunga said the committees should
effectively identify and plug out supply chains for imported dangerous drugs and
substance.
“You must also be able to effectively target centres and individuals responsible for
producing these dangerous drugs and substances locally. There will also be need,
after the formulation of your committees to monitor and survey hotspots for drugs
and substance abuse as well as recommend on different deterrent penalties drug
lords and users should be sentenced to,” she said.
Excessive drugs and substance use has also of late been attributed to the spiralling
divorces in the province, with physicians and clinicians claiming that people into drug
abuse hardly have time for their partners.
Many scholars believe this in turn is resulting in marriages breaking up and in some
instances partners moving out of their matrimonial bedrooms to find satisfaction
elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the Government is expecting to come up with a multi-sectoral report on
drugs and substance abuse inclusive of all stakeholders to inform policies, and
resilient infrastructure frameworks that curtail the proliferation of the scourge starting
from July.