• The police raided the club after receiving information it was hosting a party that required youths to have a roll of bhang to enter. Did they see posters plastered everywhere?
• Posters advertising the party and entry ticket were plastered around Kenol town.
Image: ALICE WAITHERA
Want to party at Le Zeros Sports Bar and Grill on Saturday right?
All you needed to enter was a roll of bhang.
That's what all the posters blatantly plastered around all over Kenol town in Maragua subcounty said. As common as waganga adverts.
Too good to be true, so the club was flooded, filled with music and clouds of heady smoke.
But police too had read the posters. They didn't need entry tickets
They raided the club, nabbed 83 youths on Saturday night, confiscated 146 rolls of bhang. They arrested six adults, including the club owner, party organisers and a D§j.
The adults were arraigned on Monday and remanded until July 10 when charges will be preferred.
Thirteen others were arranged on charges of being drunk and disorderly — They got a day of community service
Maragua OCPD John Onditi said the young suspects had travelled from Thika and Ruiru towns in Kiambu county. Only a few Murang' residents attended.
Police impounded a Nissan van with tinted windows in the compound. They said some suspects probably travelled in the van to the party.
Cops could not find the keys to open the vehicle and could not immediately establish if it contained more bhang. It was towed to Makuyu police station.
Onditi said that when police raided the club, most suspects dropped the bhang on the floor or tossed it on the counter and the DJ's stand.
"We have decided to zero in on six people including the owner of the club and the other organisers,” Onditi said.
Those suspects were arraigned on Monday in a Kigumo court before senior resident magistrate Agnetta Ogonda who remanded them.
On Saturday, Onditi had raised concerns that the Kenol Sagana highway that connects to the Moyale Ethiopia highway is being used by bhang suppliers to ferry the drugs from northern parts of the country.
Criminals have been using unorthodox means of transporting bhang, even using fuel lorries , he said.
Murang’a has been named as one of the counties with the highest levels of drugs use among pupils and students.
A security team is working day and night to curb drugs use and peddlers and suppliers are arrested daily and charged, Obnditi said.
“It is shocking that even the elderly are selling drugs to youths. We recently arrested a 74-year-old granny with 49 stones of bhang in Maragua,” he said.
The high rate of hard drug use has increased crime, especially defilement and rape, he said.
MP Mary Waithera said that children as young as nine were using drugs in schools. notably in Maragua, Makuyu and Kirimiri areas during recess.
“When you see students basking in the sun in the fields during break times, chances are high they are using drugs. Drugs are now being heavily used in rural areas and drastic measures are required," she said.
(Edited by V. Graham)