|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
Tanzania: More entrenched in drug trafficking
CHARLES NZO MMBAGA Daily News
Saturday 08 Apr 2006 # New IGP must win back the lost war # Marijuana from Arusha is said to be one of the most potent in the world THE statistics are alarming. On Thursday this week a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Dr Luka Siyame, shocked parliament with a string of numbers of Tanzanians arrested in drug-related cases in four years. The total, he said, was 27,555 Tanzanians, in four years. Tanzania is fast becoming notorious in nacortics, especially cocaine, heroine and mandrax. Dr. Siyame says cocaine leads the pack. Between 1997 and last year, 3,146 kilogrames of heroine and cocaine were intercepted at various points in Tanzania and 2,810 traffickers convicted. During the same period 622,600 khat was confiscated and over 2,000 khat traffickers arrested and convicted. About 330 young Tanzanians are languishing in various jails worldwide for drug trafficking as Tanzania is apparently losing the battle against drug abuse and illicit trafficking. It is good to have these figures out. Many countries hide such figures. Over 60 young Tanzanians were arrested in foreign countries— including in Kampala and Nairobi— between 2003 and 2004 alone. Marijuana tops the list of highly peddled drugs, earning the country the reputation of being the second largest marijuana producer in Africa, after South Africa. “This is despite our best efforts to clampdown on the production, trafficking and consumption of marijuana,” says Christopher Shekiondo, the country’s anti-narcotics czar. The new Inspector General of Police, Mr Saidi Mwema, should be worried. The man who appointed him to the sensitive post might have already given him a long list of priorities. Police number one post has a hot chair. The public have their expectation. On top of the list is the end to robberies. I suspect curbing robberies is also the president’s priority. The second must be cleansing Tanzania and making its name shine again. It has to be pulled from the basket of drug-abuse-and-trafficking nations. The IGP must have, of course, already been told by the Anti-Narcotics Unit about the sad story. Recent revelations on the sad Tanzanian story accurately tallies with recent UN statistics that show that two per cent of all confiscated dried (and ready for consumption) marijuana in the world in 2002 was in Tanzania, and effectively placed the country on the fourth position woorldwide and the second on the African continent. Last year alone over 281.5 hectares of bhang were destroyed in the fields. Between 1997 and last year over two million kilogrammes of bhang were confiscated, with 37,264 suspected peddlers arrested. While the UN statistics indicate some major and tangible accomplishment in fighting the vice, (citing confiscation of 90.4 tonnes of dried marijuana, in 2002 in Tanzania) the issue at hand is that at the same time they indirectly indicate Tanzania is leading in Marijuana cultivation and the war against the narcotics is far from being won. Apparently implying that Tanzania was a yard stick for the continent, a recent UN study found that Africa’s share of global seizures increased from approximately 10 per cent to 32 per cent, while the share of the Americas decreased from 80 per cent to 61 per cent. In short there appears to have been a global upsurge in demand for cannabis and a corresponding increase in supply, increasingly from southern Africa — with Tanzania, Malawi, Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa rated as the region’s biggest producers. Some Tanzanians, caught dealing with the illicit trafficking have even died abroad, says Mr Shekiondo but gave no figures of Tanzanians who died in foreign lands. Police officials in Arusha, Tanga and Kilimanjaro, where most of the marijuana plantations are found admit that crafty marijuana smugglers have been able to evaded government clampdown . They smuggle out the popular narcotics to Mombasa, Kenya. To evade the police, a majority of the growers have retreated to the remote mountainous areas of Mount Meru, Kilimanjaro and Usambara where the roads are almost impassable thus making it difficult authorities deal with them effectively. Police concede that they have been tipped off that some of the larger syndicates are hiding their marijuana amongst the country’s massive, coffee and banana plantations. “The traffickers are becoming innovative scheme to avoid detection. There are rumours that some traffickers, eager to avoid interceptions, are transporting the stuff in coffins with some using donkeys to get through roadblocks and discourage proper searches,” said a senior policeman in Arusha. Sometimes this is done with the support of some rogue and corrupts government officials. Some of the drug barons, according to sources, ‘bribe junior police officers’ to transport marijuana in public service vans with public servants accepting the risk as a way of supplementing their meagre salary of less than 100 U.S. dollars a month. Arusha Police statistics show that over 60 per cent of the annual production of marijuana finds its way across the borders to the lucrative South African market. Some of it reaches the European and American markets. But in some European and perhaps American states, bhang smoking is not a big deal to crime busters. In Holland it is not crime to possess or smoke bhang. It is reported that Tanzania’s brand of cannabis, especially the one coming from the slopes of Mount Meru, in Arusha, contains cannabenoids— a chemical substance that has the power of changing people’s moods. It is believed to be one of the most potent in the world. The Marijuana business has also started showing negative effects on populations in areas where it is widely grown. Arusha Regional officials say the new city was fast joining the ranks of regions with a big number of drug addicts. Statistics at Arusha’s Mount Meru Hospital show that from January to June this last year alone, 78 people have been undergone drug addiction treatment. Many are victims of marijuana smoking. The story is the same in Tanga where dozens of semi-lunatic young men are admitted at the main Bombo Hospital. People with similar problems are seen roaming around in major streets looking for more doses. “Our sole mental asylum is already crowded with people who have almost become lunatics because of hemp,” a Mount Meru hospital nurse told the ‘Daily News on Saturday’ recently. The Arusha force, which is taking a no-nonsense approach to rid the Meru Hills of bhang cultivation are using helicopters to patrol the Meru hilly and impassable areas. The chopper-aided raids on the hills have had little success, growers are rarely arrested. The police end up destroying the plantations. “We will keep the pressure on growers and traders until we eradicate all the fields here. We are keeping up our vigilance” the former combative Arusha Police Commander, James Kombe.
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!