Women pay boda boda riders to collect zombie husbands, sons from drug dens

Women in parts of Nairobi and Central Kenya are hiring boda boda riders to collect their alcoholic husbands and sons and return them safely home every evening.

The riders check bars, chang’aa dens and floodwater trenches every evening searching for the wasted men and then cajoling them to take the ride home.

The unconventional move is a desperate attempt by women to save their addicted husbands and children from dying, and dying away from home.

This was revealed on Monday at a meeting organised by the National Authority for the Campaign against Drug Abuse (Nacada) in Nairobi.

Nacada said one in every 20 Kenyans (1,357,040), most of them men, are severely addicted to alcohol.

They are unable to control their drinking and always crave alcohol when they are not drinking.

Their bodies are wasted, their thinking disorganised and many of them black out after drinking.

Nacada chairman Stephen Kiptoem Mairori said the country does not have enough rehabilitation centres to help such a huge number of addicts.

Morris Kamenderi, Nacada’s principal researcher, said the youngest age Kenyans are introduced to tobacco is six years and alcohol seven years.

“By 15 years, a large number is already addicted,” he told a Nairobi meeting with the Kenya Editors Guild.

Nacada organised the meeting to seek the media’s help in fighting alcohol and drug abuse. The authority said many young people combine alcohol with bhang, tobacco, miraa or prescription drugs.

Some have ventured into more dangerous veterinary drugs and anaesthetics. Addiction to some animal drugs is untreatable.

Kamenderi presented the findings of the five-year national survey on the ‘Status of Drugs and Substance Use (DSU) in Kenya, 2022’, initially released in May.

The findings show 156,461 primary schoolchildren are currently abusing tobacco products, 127,124 are abusing alcohol, 112,456 miraa and 39,115 are bhang smokers.

Kamenderi said in total, 153,846 young people aged 15 to 24 are already severely addicted to alcohol, 90,531 are totally addicted to bhang, 58,819 to miraa and 58,819 to tobacco.

Such young people are expected to be in primary and secondary schools and colleges.

Mairori said the crisis deepened because the authority was helpless in combating drug abuse during the term of the Jubilee government.

He said there was always a stable supply of illicit alcohol and other intoxicants.

“You would arrest the suppliers but because they had political connections, they would be released afterwards,” he said.

“There is currently political goodwill to fight this war in the current administration. When we came in we realised we had a big problem with supply. So we restructured Nacada and strengthened our compliance and enforcement department.” 

Mairori, an AIC Church pastor, was appointed Nacada chairman in January this year.

Alcohol addiction is treatable, but Mairori said the country lacks enough rehabilitation centres to help the 1.3 million Kenyans who are hooked.

He also said Kenya has many bogus rehabilitation centres that have worsened the problem.

“The majority are doing a good job. A few are worse. People go there struggling but leave worse off. These centres are just like drug barons and are interested in the money,” Mairori said.

Overall, alcohol is the most abused substance by all age groups in Kenya. It is consumed by one in every eight Kenyans aged 15 to 65, according to the findings.

Western region has the highest prevalence of alcohol use and abuse (23.8 per cent) followed by Coast (13.9 per cent) and Central (12.8 per cent), the 2022 survey indicated.

Mairori defended the “excessive” focus on Central Kenya, saying people there consume more dangerous brews.

“In Western the problem is busaa and other traditional brews with alcohol content of about two per cent. So people drink and still go to work. In Central, the problem is many people are addicted to second-generation brews with alcohol content of as much as 40 per cent. After drinking, they are incapable of doing anything else,” he said.

Mairori said they have managed to reduce the supply of this liquor, but the war is far from being won.

“Those institutions charged by the Constitution should do their work because it is illegal to do drugs and to sell illicit drugs in Kenya,” he said.

Mairori also said the county liquor licensing boards have been a weak link in fighting drugs and alcohol abuse.

Boards in many counties are filled with individuals with no knowledge about the prevention of drug and substance abuse.

“We want changes in liquor licensing boards because today governors choose anybody. So we are working and we may have a law to guide us in that. Governors are with us and we are very grateful for that,” he said.

Acting Nacada CEO John Muteti last month said they received information about Fentanyl abuse in Kenya.

Fentanyl is a man-made painkiller that is about 50 times stronger than heroin.

In the US, illegally manufactured Fentanyl and other opioids are fuelling the worst drug crisis in the country’s history, killing more than 1,500 people per week.

Muteti said last month they collected 20 ‘Fentanyl’ samples in various forms in three counties of the Coast region and sent them to the Government Chemist for analysis and identification.

“From the findings, we can comfortably report that so far we do not have any reported Fentanyl case in the country,” he told the meeting.

Muteti attributed the zombie-like symptoms among many drug abusers to either one or a combination of other drugs such as heroin, Diazepam, Amitriptyline and Xylazine, a veterinary tranquilliser.

“The discovery of Xylazine presents a potential public health crisis in the management of drug overdose cases because the life-saving drug Naloxone does not counter the overdose,” he said.         

Muteti said the evidence of non-medical use of veterinary drugs shows the need to regulate and control the diversion of such drugs into the illegal market.

“This includes a strong consideration for scheduling of Xylazine and other veterinary drugs prone to abuse to avert such instances,” he said.

However, Nacada also noted what he called a [George] "Wajackoyah effect", referring to the former presidential candidate. The use of bhang in Kenya has doubled since 2017.

This is mainly driven by misinformation about the harm caused by marijuana which has been legalised for medical and recreational use in some countries

The drug was also popularised by presidential contender Wajackoyah last year.

At least two per cent of Kenyans aged 15 to 65 now use marijuana, an increase from one per cent in 2017.

Cultivation, use and possession of marijuana is illegal in Kenya. Offenders face as long as eight years of imprisonment.