Online Reporter
B-Metro Editorial Team
THE news from Gweru last week had jaws hitting the floor. A 49-year-old medical doctor, a man sworn to heal, was busted puffing mutoriro, the deadly crystal meth poisoning our streets. Dr Farikai Manjeya was caught at his lodgings, the infamous “doctors’ cottages,” getting high with three companions.
It sounds like the plot of a drama series, but this is real life. A man trained to save lives, a supposed role model, was standing shoulder to shoulder with alleged junkies. Mutoriro is no harmless pastime. It is highly addictive, dangerous, and illegal under Zimbabwe’s laws. It turns the strongest into shadows, restless, sleepless, and reckless. And here is a doctor, meant to protect health, chasing the same high. If someone we trust to heal can fall, what hope is there for impressionable youth already tempted by drugs?
The irony is bitter. The man who should be teaching discipline and responsibility instead traded his stethoscope for a J-pipe and his white coat for criminal charges. What lesson does this send to young people? If a doctor can risk everything for mutoriro, how can we expect teenagers to resist the lure of the streets?
The arrests also underline the importance of community vigilance. Police acted after receiving a tip-off about “strange smoke and wild behaviour.” Without concerned neighbours, this doctor might have continued his dangerous indulgence unchecked. It proves that citizens, not just authorities, are the first line of defence against drug abuse.
This incident comes hot on the heels of Zimbabwe’s National Drug and Substance Abuse Taskforce, launched to smash supply chains, rehabilitate users and protect communities. The taskforce promised to go after suppliers, peddlers, and users alike, and Dr Manjeya’s arrest shows why no one is exempt. Even the educated, even the respected, can fall victim to this poison.
The case raises hard questions. How did a healer get entangled with the very substance that destroys lives? How many other professionals are quietly chasing the same high? Justice must follow, but the bigger fight is against the drug itself, its availability, and the culture of risk-taking that allows even doctors to fall.
Dr Manjeya will now face the courts, and rightly so. But the public should take a lesson: no one is untouchable in the fight against mutoriro. Families, schools, communities, and law enforcement must work together. Zimbabwe cannot afford to lose more lives or more role models to this killer drug.
The white coat may be gone, but the message is crystal clear: chase mutoriro and everyone loses.
