War on drugs cannot be an empty charade

Prosecutions for offences involving drugs leave a lot to be desired. Two street-boys found on Kirinyaga Road, Nairobi, rolling up bhang joints and carrying less than one kilo of weed face charges of trafficking. Couriers caught at airport security with several kilos of heroin or other ‘Class A’ narcotics, as clear a case of trafficking as you can get, end up in court charged with a lesser crime: Possession.

The boys are promptly slapped with a fine of more than a hundred times the value of the drugs (sentencing guidelines call for a fine of three-times the value). On the other hand, known traffickers whose attempts to cross international borders with massive consignments should attract mandatory life sentences get off with a ten-year term and the prospect of an early pardon.

The charade has been going on for years, as couriers for West African barons get off with light sentences due to what can only be prosecutorial misconduct. The barons themselves never answer for their crimes: Deportation has often been the ‘solution’ and, in at least one prominent case, not a permanent one at that.

Real effort

Things are worse in the police force, where attempting to investigate drug activity is hazardous to one’s career and health.

The epidemics of drug abuse, police corruption and organised crime that this trade fuels cannot be stemmed if we go on like this. We must begin to see a real effort to rein in the drug trade through busts like the 2004 one, prosecutions that make sense, and prison sentences that fit the crime.