Kenya: Review policy to address the youth drug addiction

What you need to know:

• According to the World Health Organization, more than half of the people who use drugs in Kenya are 10-19 years of age.
• The drug-related cases that have been heard and concluded by the courts rose by 44 per cent from 2016 to 2018.
• This is why we need to advocate evidence-based legislation and public health methods that are effective in combatting drug abuse in Kenya.

Drug use is a growing problem in Kenya. Young people are now more exposed to substances such as heroin, cocaine and marijuana aka bhang aka shash than ever before.

According to the World Health Organization, more than half of the people who use drugs in Kenya are 10-19 years of age.

The drug-related cases that have been heard and concluded by the courts rose by 44 per cent from 2016 to 2018.

This is why we need to advocate evidence-based legislation and public health methods that are effective in combatting drug abuse in Kenya.

The law on narcotics ignores the connection between public health and drug use and instead implements punitive measures which have no history of effectiveness.

Updates in the law seem to target people of lower economic status by increasing fines, in some cases more than 20 times. This puts low-income individuals in jail at disproportionate rates.

These harsh measures should be replaced by interventions that humanise people who use drugs and offer treatment, which prisons do not have the capacity to provide.