adminLAST week we carried disturbing reports that some students have been caught using soap, and other materials, to make drugs at some schools in this country.
This has led some boarding schools banning students from bringing foodstuffs, such as cereals, from home.
This has been done to try and curb the drug menace among students.
It emerged that some students were using green bar and Jade soaps to create the illegal substances.
Some students also combine cereals, which contain sugar and sorghum, with yeast and brown sugar, and ferment the mixture as illicit brews.
The alcohol from these concoctions is extremely potent.
We have received reports that some students have either been suspended or expelled from schools as a result of drug use in recent months.
This has resulted in some schools now taking a harder line, including banning some foodstuffs, from being brought to boarding schools by students.
We reported that Riverton Academy in Masvingo and Wise Owl were some of the leading boarding schools who have already taken a stance to ban students from bringing in foodstuffs from home.
For years, it has been tradition, at our boarding schools, for students to come with foodstuffs, tucked in their trunks, when the new term opens.
It’s the supplementary food, which we all needed, once we were in our dormitories, either studying or just socialising.
However, it’s also fair to say that, back in those days, the drugs menace, among the students, wasn’t as bad as it is now.
But, things have changed and the coming in of the internet, Google and its associated platforms, means that students now have access to information, including destructive material, like how home-made drugs can be made.
With just the punch of a keyboard, whether on their mobile phones or laptops, they can access a whole lot of information, which can give them access to a dark world where drugs are made.
They also getting information about how such drugs can be made, even at a primary level like at a boarding school, or at home.
This has led some of them to experiment and now they are reported to be using cereals, and sops, mixing them to get a concoction which can make them get high and fly into a fantasy world.
Of course, there are some schools which will jump on the ban of the foodstuffs from home to pile on the expenses which the parents have to foot to keep their children at boarding schools.
But, by and large, it appears many parents are in agreement with the hardline stance taken by some schools.
“What Wise Owl and Riverton schools have done is spreading to other schools since the drug menace is ravaging almost every school,” a parent told us last week.
“Vamwe took other measures, but the students are now using soaps like Jade and green bars to make illicit substances.”
It’s clear that something had to be done to start arresting the slide into Armageddon and hopefully the measures will help deal with this menace.
Online Reporter