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For Tana youths, drug abuse is the ‘new normal’
Mr Ali Osman rolls bhang mixed with shashamane powder on pieces of paper for sale in Madogo, Tana River.
On May 7, Omar Dhidha will mark his fourth year since he quit school and chose a life of misery. From focusing on his bright future to being a junkie in the streets of Hola, Tana River County, the 19-year-old is turning into a nuisance.
Twenty of his 24 hours are spent intoxicated in bhang and khat and he barely eats anything.
It all started while he was in school in Standard Seven, when he joined a group of boys that believed in drugs as a stylish vibe to winning girls.
They had girlfriends who adored them. Wherever they sat, they recounted the experiences of the previous night. Sex and night disco escapades dominated their talk.
They were the big men in the school and anyone with a contrary opinion was considered childish, naive, and unworthy at the table of "men".
"I wanted to have a girlfriend too. I wanted to experience sex and all that they talked about, so I started sharing a stick of bhang with one of the girls in the crew," he recounts.
Intoxicated
Little did he know that was the first step into a journey of no return. They were ever hyped once intoxicated and felt they were untouchables. They became unruly and started confronting their teachers to the point of challenging some into a physical fight. In class, they formed a backbench that would chew gum and muguka as they cracked silly jokes.
When the school could not stomach them any longer, four of the six were expelled. Life for the remaining two, including Dhidha, became boring, and just before the second term of 2018 could end, he threw in the towel and chose the streets.
He joined his friends in their wild dreams, chasing after girls and hanging out with commercial sex workers. In the evening, they joined other addicts at 'Mushroom', an area in Hola close to the River Tana known for drugs peddling." There are agents there with rolls of bhang. They are employed by other people who bring it from Mombasa.
We buy from the agents but as for the khat, you must get it from town," he says. He realised that he had to get a job or become a thief to get money to finance his addiction.
A buyer negotiates with a trader for a bunch of khat in the streets of Hola, Tana River County.
Getting a job in the streets of Hola was a nightmare, and worse for an underage boy.He joined others at the riverbanks to load trucks with sand. This would earn him Sh200-Sh500 if there was business, but most of the time he would struggle and end up begging for a puff of bhang from his colleagues. "Sometimes things would get difficult, forcing us to steal a basin or a bucket left out in the night and sell it, or we would send our girls out to look for the money," he says.
A day without a puff of bhang feels like a death sentence to him. Sometimes he steals from cereal shops so that he can sell in the streets to finance his urge for the drugs. His parents, who are separated, have tried to get him back to school in vain.
"I once called the police on him. He was arrested and locked up at the Hola Police Station, where he underwent counselling, but his mother came raging and released him," says Mohammed Dhidha, the boy’s father, a teacher.
He wanted the police to take the young man to an approved school but the mother refused and took him away with her to her home, where she lived with her new husband. A few months later, she kicked him out after he engaged his stepfather in a fight, intoxicated, demanding that he return his mother to his biological father.
"I suddenly met him in the streets and called his mother. She told me I should have my demon and do with him as I wanted," the boy’s father says.
Hungry and tired
Omar Dhidha now lives in the streets. He has become a vulture and preys on anything vulnerable. By the time I engage him in a conversation about his life, he is hungry and tired that he can barely pay attention.
In his pockets is a white paper, folded in fours, an eviction notice from his landlord. I hand him Sh100 to get himself some food at the kiosk where we met. He enters but takes the exit and disappears. Moments later, I find him with a group of friends heading towards 'Mushroom', where misery beckons all addicts.
Mwanaisha Bonaya, on the other hand, complains about her husband's addiction to khat that has ruined their bedroom romance. The mother of two claims that there has been no intimacy between them for the past four years.
"I have conditioned myself to stop thinking about intercourse but I’m hurting. He provides most of the things but this bedroom issue is my biggest need," she says. The issues, she says, started the moment her husband learned from friends how to chew khat.
Chewing khat
The start was not that bad, but as time went by he became addicted to it, and now sits with a group of friends chewing khat from dusk to dawn. "He always comes back home with a kilo of meat, and a kilo of khat.
We cook, he doesn't eat, just sits with friends and chews khat," she says. The 27-year-old woman now contemplates walking out of the marriage to forge a path on her own before she puts herself into shame. But she is not the only one suffering as a result of the herb from Meru. Hundreds of women have raised a similar complaint in open forums on various occasions and in training on matters of drugs and substance abuse.
Khat and muguka have been adversely mentioned as home-wrecking drugs, more lethal than "mpango wa kando", whereas bhang and shashamane have been associated with crime. With no rehabilitation centre in Tana River County, the victims of khat, bhang and shashamane remain in the streets, turning into a form of insecurity for residents. A few manage to get admitted by families to rehab centres in Mombasa.
Efforts by the county government to curb the use of khat and mugoka have been thwarted by the business community. In 2020, a move by Tana River Governor Dhadho Godhana to block the herbs from reaching the county was met with protests. Addicted residents started moving into the neighbouring counties of Garissa, Lamu, Kitui and Kilifi to maintain their supplies. Some traders even changed hours of supply from dawn to midnight, and instead of selling them at the usual joints, they picked shops and private pharmacies for their deals.
"We just wanted to help our people, to save a generation, but all our efforts were fought both locally and at the national level," said Youth Executive Abbas Kunyo.
A report by the anti-drug abuse agency Nacada shows in 20202 more than 40,000 youth in the coastal region were hooked to bhang, while twice the population was hooked to khat.
Hooked to bhang
Nearly a quarter of the population of those hooked to bhang were involved in criminal activities while just a handful were in rehab. A report by Youth Reform, an organisation that trains young people in Tana River on self-rehabilitation and counselling addicts indicates that more than 1,500 youth are using bhang while thrice the population is addicted to khat and other drugs.
Tana River County Police Commander Emmanuel Mwaringa notes that the police have closed down more than 10 drug joints in the county since 2020. Efforts to get the main source of supply for bhang and shashamane, he said, have not been fruitful as the dealers seem to be well informed about police operations.
"Some of these sales are done in palatial homes and just houses in the streets, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact places but we are narrowing down on the main actors very soon," he says.
He blames society for supporting the decadence and giving the harmful effects of drugs a blind eye, warning that the long-term effects will damage the majority of lives.
