Friday, November 1, 2024

Sign of the high times

Miriam Kilano, officer commanding Narcotics, Fauna and Flora Squad, likens the scourge of illegal drugs in Botswana to that of HIV/AIDS.

This is not some reckless rant by a desperate officer bent on fear ÔÇô mongering, far from it. An average Motswana is as likely to know a drug user as they are to know someone infected by the HIV/Aids virus.

Almost every easy going Motswana man who enjoys partying once in a while has been in the company of friends sharing a spliff, and probably has a story to tell about his experiences with harsh brownies or space cakes.

Smoking joint is, for many ordinary Batswana, as run ÔÇôof the- mill and pleasurable as drinking or smoking cigarettes. Most, however, are drug users you rarely hear or read about in newspapers. You won’t find them breaking into your home to fund their habit. Their use of joint is a lifestyle choice: it doesn’t define or consume them like some heroin and crack addicts.

They don’t register as an alert on the drug eradication radar, or as a headline on newspapers. They are mostly smart men in suits with business cards who are unlikely to be stopped and searched by the police. Just like the case with HIV/AIDS, it is those “hidden” users with lots of money to burn who present the growth area for drug abuse in Botswana.

This emerging trend in Botswana confirms fears by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Their annual World Drug Report 2012 report states: “One key development to monitor will be the ongoing shift away from developed to developing countries, which would mean a heavier burden for countries relatively less equipped to tackle it. Demographic trends suggest that the total number of drug users in developing countries would increase significantly, owing not only to those areas’ higher projected population growth, but also their younger populations and rapid rates of urbanization.” Kilano says, “One way or the other this shift affects us; in the past, our country was used as one of the transit countries for drug traffickers but now research has shown that some of our own citizens are users. There is no use in denying that drugs are everywhere in Botswana.”

The rate at which illicit drugs are spreading across Botswana has spiraled in recent years, the local Narcotics, Fauna and Flora squad reports. The year 2012 recorded the highest number of illicit drug related arrests nationwide when compared to previous years. Arrests made by the Narcotics, fauna and flora investigations squad in 2011 increased by 27 percent in the year 2012.

However, a total weight of 440.4kgs worth of cannabis has been confiscated in 2012 as compared to the 914.054kg in 2011. The squad explained that it’s not the quantity of drugs that determines the spread but rather the number of arrests made.

Kilano explains that just like in any investigation, they have their limitations because they work based on the information they receive from informers as well as their own surveillance techniques. She mentions that because Botswana is at times treated as a transit country, it’s quite possible that the portion of drugs that they have intercepted does not depict the overall scale of the drug trafficking in the country. She is of the view that in future, the country is likely to experience an escalation in Drug distribution and drug abuse.

So far, research findings by local drug busters is not detailed enough to categorize or distinguish whether the majority of those arrested were carrying illegal drugs for distribution or for personal use, they were however able to measure the amount that the suspects were carrying at the time of arrest. According to Kilano the Drugs and substance Act indicates how sentencing is carried out depending on the quantity of drugs found on guilty persons.

The UNODC report states that Cannabis was and continues to be the world’s most wide-spread illicit drug; it further reveals that while cannabis use is stable or declining in several developed countries, it is still increasing in many developing ones. The trend did not escape Botswana, as cannabis is counted amongst the two most common drugs of concern in Botswana alongside cocaine and ecstasy. Of the overall arrests made in 2012, 95% of the suspects were Batswana found with cannabis, and 4% of Zimbabweans while South Africans and Zambians formed 0.3% and Tanzanians, Americans, Indians, Bangladesh and Namibians were categorizes within the 0.7% margin. In 2012, the squad confiscated 112.7659g worth of cocaine as compared to the 35.71 in 2011.

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