Tackling 'Home Brewed' drug abuse in Zimbabwe

Submitted by layman chigumadzi on 18 March 2020

As the Director of Stone of Help Trust I have noted with great concern the increase of drug and substance abuse by juveniles in the 10 to 24 year age range. It's so disheartening seeing many children dropping out of school and some carrying these drugs into school premises.

As a concerned parent we arranged a workshop which involved the police department, health department, legal practitioners and the youths in our community. We delivered a message educating the youths about the dangers of drugs both physically and mentally.

We learnt that most of the drugs being consumed by these kids are now home brewed (making use of local ingredients) and they are using some pills meant for mentally disturbed people among other ingredients.

We intend to carry out a baseline survey in order to come up with the exact statistics on the number of kids who are actively involved in drugs and also the sources of ingredients being used for manufacturing these drugs.