While addressing participants during just-concluded drama festivals in Bungoma, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha challenged parents to spend more time with children instead of giving them money to compensate for their absence. He also advised parents to release their househelps and let their teenage children help in house chores during school holidays. The CS is right. According to a chilling report published in this newspaper, children as young as nine are lured into drug abuse by people known to them.
They could be teachers, classmates or that friendly shopkeeper in the estate or the village. And it begins with an innocent puff, sip or even chewing a twig of miraa. Soon, the young and impressionable teenager is trapped into long-running addiction. Having no money of their own, the entrapped young man or woman, is forced to engage in petty crime to sustain the addiction. When things become difficult at home, the addict is forced to join big-time crime and soon that young and disciplined son or daughter is hooked to the underworld. It sounds simple, but drug abuse has devastated hundreds of families and turned thousands of youth into cabbage.
Sadly, this is a situation that could be avoided. Parents, teachers and guardians should spend more time with their children and take note of any serious changes in behaviour. When a teenager is suddenly easy to anger, starts stealing money and hiding stuff from the others, the parent should be alarmed.
Seek to find out the real cause and counsel the teenager. Members of a residential area should also take note of strangers coming to their areas. There have been reports of young men or women who befriend children in estates then introduce them to drugs. Last year, the Ministry of Education banned shops and bars around schools, arguing that they were the primary source of drugs for students.
The ban has not been fully enforced as shops are still mushrooming around schools. It is such time the ministry and schools enforced that rule. The schools should also take a conscious effort to know everyone who enters the compound and what their business is. Finally, it is easier to prevent than rehabilitate drug addicts. Let all stakeholders take action.
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