The National Authority for the Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse has published findings on teenage drug and substance abuse that should jolt the country out of slackness.
The moral depravity fuelled by criminal networks benefiting from the illegal cash flow has worked its evil ways into schools and social spaces.
Nacada identified teens between 13 and 15 as a critical period for initiation into substance abuse, while bhang, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs ravage large swathes of youths.
Schools and even parents must treat drug abuse for what it is – a serious criminal enterprise that needs serious criminal justice intervention and not a discipline problem. It is a national emergency that requires urgent and early intervention, vigilance and honest conversation.
Parents must know their children’s friends, routines and online influences, while creating homes where young people can discuss peer pressure without fear of reprisal.
Schools, meanwhile, must make drug education part of their daily programme rather than an occasional school lecture. Age-appropriate campaigns, life-skills lessons, counselling and peer-inspired programmes must be built into the curriculum.
Nacada's evidence demonstrates school-based strategies can improve awareness and cut drug-linked disciplinary challenges.
The drive must move into sports clubs, churches, youth centres, social media and social spaces where young people gather for leisure.
We cannot spend scarce public resources endlessly repairing damage that prevention could have cured. Every teenager saved from addiction is a patriotic Kenyan ready to build the nation.
Quote of the day: “To achieve great things we must be self-confined...mastery is revealed in limitation.” —German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling died on August 20, 1854
