Police Anti-Drug Unit head Godfrey Nzowa and his team deserve praise for their dedication to tracing the movement of illegal narcotic drugs countrywide. The unit impounded a record 210 kilogrammes of heroin and arrested four suspects in Lindi Municipality on Thursday. In September, they seized 97 kilogrammes of heroin worth Sh4.3 billion and arrested three Tanzanians and an Iranian suspect in Tanga.Two Pakistanis were arrested with 179 kilogrammes at Mbezi in Dar es Salaam in February. The latest development confirms the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report that drug traffickers have turned some African countries, including Tanzania, into a cost-effective route for heroin shipment to Europe and elsewhere. [continues 108 words]
As tourists stroll languidly through the narrow streets of Stone Town, the romantic city hums with life. Vendors sell oriental spices and colourful fabrics, while children play soccer between crumbling walls and men hurry in long gowns towards the mosque. But when darkness descends over the historic town, Zanzibar's capital takes on a different life. Formerly bustling alleys are transformed into dim, shady passages where drug addicts hover to get their longed-for heroin fix. The town's dark secret: the island is a heroin stronghold. [continues 883 words]
THE number of drug addicts reported at various facilities in the country seeking medical attention and care has increased significantly, indicating an increase in drug abuses. For example, records from the Psychiatry Department of the Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) show an increase of 2-3 per cent of psychiatry cases caused by drug abuse. In 2005 alone 1,654 people reported for treatment of drug related problems in the country. Drug abuse does not only affect health and socio-economic well being of individual drug users, it also affects us all, in our families, communities and the nation as a whole, the Drug Control Commissioner, Christopher Shekiondo said. [continues 763 words]
THE Drug Control Commissioner, Christopher Shekiondo, has proposed long imprisonment for drug dealers as a way to curb trafficking in narcotics. Mr Shekiondo noted in Dar es Salaam yesterday when opening a seminar for educators and counsellors on drugs and HIV that jail terms could be more effective than mere fines. "For example one foreign drug baron was arrested at the airport with drugs worth 60 million shillings in street value but was fined to pay one million shillings only and freed," Mr Shekiondo explained. He said that the current fines were not effective in curbing the problem because the accused did not feel the pain and went on with the business as usual. [continues 109 words]
Arusha - As a UN Report lists Tanzania as the second largest marijuana producer in Africa after South Africa there is fear that the drug is becoming the mainstay of the economy of some remote villages north-west of Arusha . This month and August is the main harvest season of marijuana in some of the villages north of Oldonyo Sambu, off Arusha-Namanga Road and business of the illegal drug is booming. An investigation by this newspaper indicates that the villages are now a beehive of activities as farmers are engaged in brisk transactions with dealers who smuggle the drug out of the villages. The password for buyers is "Hakuna kulala (No sleeping) ". [continues 345 words]
In too many cases the young experimenter takes drugs until he is "hooked." Assume that in a teen-ager's home, one or both parents smoke cigarettes and use alcohol. The teenager interprets this as his parents' permission for him to do the same. Thus he is easily vulnerable to the appeals of his fellow teen-agers when they urge him to join them in experimenting with cigarettes, liquor, and even marijuana. These three practices smoking tobacco, drinking liquor, and smoking marijuana are tragic combination. Using them, the teen-ager becomes tolerant of this kind of conduct and may try the more potent drugs. Not everyone, of course, who smokes cigarettes and drinks liquor, indulges in drug abuse as we usually define it. But practically every person on hard drugs first used cigarettes, liquor, and marijuana. [continues 298 words]
About this time many of us in the East Africa and across the country made a commitment to recovery in Narcotics Anonymous (NA). It sounds funny now, but I can remember when people in NA thought that if we went to NA only, we would end up drunk! Our basic text does not state anything about going exclusively to NA, but during those early years, many of us came to believe that if we attended NA regularly and actively participated in our NA recovery, we would and could stay clean over time from all drugs including alcohol. And there it was in print: "Our identification as addicts is all inclusive with respect to any mood-changing, mind-altering substance. Alcoholism is too limited a term for us; our problem is not a specific substance, it is a disease called addiction." [continues 197 words]
IN waging the war against illicit drugs Africa plans to start web-sites to expose dealers and traffickers, says a recent report of the African Union(AU). These would also show the tactics used to conduct the drugs trade in a continent that already has a fair share of problems, abject poverty among them. The web-site contents will include such vital information as cannabis plantations for easy spotting and destruction. Surfers will get access to the latest publications and other news material that leads to either arresting or helping with investigations against drug pushers, money launderers and couriers. [continues 472 words]
Inside Tanzania
