Online Reporter
DRUG and substance abuse and its disastrous effects on individuals, communities and the nation at large are still a major menace, despite increasing efforts to deal with it in a multi-pronged approach.
This approach is co-ordinated at Government level by the high-powered National Committee on Drug and Substance Abuse, bringing in all relevant ministries.
But as the committee itself stresses, the job cannot be left to Government alone. Every person, every community, every local authority, every church has to play a part, and an effective part.
There is so much that has to be done to interdict supplies, to drive the pushers from the streets, to rescue those who have fallen to addiction and to persuade those still able to take the right path to choose correctly.
There is no single route or answer and many successes involve ordinary people deciding to be involved, even if they are just passing on information and reporting unwanted behaviour.
The national committee is now moving around the provinces, all 10 of them, but starting with Harare Metropolitan, the largest in population and with all the peculiar temptations more often encountered in big cities where sometimes people feel no one cares and where it is easiest to succumb to temptation.
Already there has been progress though. Police have been intercepting supplies, usually after a tip-off from someone who both knows and cares.
They have been reeling in the drug sellers, again often identified by concerned members of the public, although the business spaces vacated by those in jail are often quickly filled by some other person who does not care about the damage caused so long as they make a dollar.
While dealers and those managing the smuggling logistics are these days invariably jailed, there is more practical discretion in coping with users who can quite often be fined instead so long as they show some willingness to co-operate.
And then of course there are those who turn themselves in for treatment or who are brought forward by their caring families.
This requires a range of effort, the formation of groups, some out-patient care and in many cases at least some in-patient care to start breaking the addiction.
Medical experts have a considerable body of collective experience, some gained by treating alcoholics, an often neglected set of victims of drug abuse even though their drug is legal.
As a sign of the movement from talk to the sort of practical action demanded by the Second Republic, the Harare meeting of those involved in leading the fight against the menace was held at Wilkins Hospital, a city council establishment built many years ago under a very long-serving city health director and named after him, when few infectious diseases had vaccines.
It was refurbished and upgraded to help in the battle against Covid-19.
As that pandemic receded, it would have been a waste to let the hospital lie derelict, and now it has a new lease on life as a treatment centre for those seeking to live a clean life, but requiring medical help, at least in the early stages of their treatment.
As the older battle against alcohol addiction shows, the fight against drugs for every addict will be life-long. The medical treatment simply prepares them for that daily decision to get through each day at a time without drugs.
This follow up is as vital as the initial treatment, and has to involve self-help groups, with Alcoholics Anonymous providing a useful example of what is possible, families, communities, churches and other support.
We have been reporting on more of these effective efforts to help those who stumbled to rebuild their lives, as practical Zimbabweans mobilise.
These are the same people who need to take the lead in persuading those tempted to take drugs that this is a bad idea.
Here we start plugging into other programmes that offer alternatives of further vocational training, more employment, more opportunities to set up small businesses.
While these are done for other very good reasons, making sure we develop as a country and bring everyone on board, they do also offer hope to those who might abandon hope. When you are busy and productive, taking drugs does not seem a reasonable option.
Once again we get back to basics, making sure we all care for each other, leaving no one behind and making sure everyone, no matter their circumstances, has hope for a better future.
