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There is general agreement that alcohol and drug abuse is increasing in Zimbabwe with more substances being abused, although this is largely based on anecdotal evidence rather than rigorous statistics since research is somewhat piecemeal.

But it is already a problem, and with more teenagers abusing alcohol and drugs and so starting earlier. And it is likely to get worse as Zimbabweans become more prosperous through the rapid economic growth we are now seeing, and the spread of that prosperity among ever larger groups of people.

So we need to be on our guard and we need to create and follow effective policies that can limit the number who try out illicit drugs, try out alcohol when very young and then drink to drunkenness at any age. 

Besides this we need to boost society’s capacity to help those who have drifted along wrong paths to get back into a productive life with real rather than chemical happiness.

Last week, police in Harare with backing from other Government units and with the Harare Metropolitan providing serious support and some co-ordination, stated a new drive to slash access to drugs.

The policy was stated as a combination of using roadblocks and other places where legal searches can be made, which will largely catch users rather dealers, plus simply picking up the obviously intoxicated on the streets, and then question them as to where they get their drugs and who is supplying them.

And then go after the dealers and start disrupting the supply chains, at least enough to push prices up since elimination is very difficult while higher prices will act as a barrier to entry, before addiction sets in. 

It would be easy to have a pile of convictions in court cases for users, but not particularly effective. But using the users to gather intelligence on the dealers starts making very good sense.

Even there the police need to differentiate between types of dealer. We apparently have schoolchildren who pay for their own supply of the less vicious drugs by selling to their friends. 

This is totally undesirable, and must be stopped, but the person we want in a jail cell is the person who set up that schoolchild dealer.

We need to remember that mbanje, crystal meth, that banned addictive cough syrup and other drugs are not the only substances that are abused. Alcohol probably remains the largest source of substance abuse and the most common mood-altering drug. 

Here we are talking about the consumption of enough alcohol to alter a mood, in other words enough to get drunk and come close to drunkenness. It is a substance where it is possible to measure off small doses without much will effect.

One result of the Legal Age of Majority Act was that the minimum age to buy alcohol was reduced to 18. It used to be 19 before you could buy in a bottle store or bar, and 21 before you could enter a night club, and liquor licence inspectors prowled. 

It might be possible to raise the buying age again. All states in the USA have set 21 as the minimum age for public drinking and buying of alcohol, many under pressure from the federal government which said it would not provide road funds for states that did not. 

The rationale was based on the accident statistics involving young drivers, and the age limit was put forward as a road safety measure, and that just passed the courts when challenged.

While cutting supply chains, and enforcing at least the present laws of no alcohol purchases for those under 18, the main effort will have to be on persuading people not to abuse substances, and on helping those who develop addictions to go drug and alcohol free. This is the hard slog and needs a lot of work and support.

There is general agreement that a lot of the effort needs to be put into persuading teenagers and young people not to start down the route of substance abuse, if only because they are more likely than a mature adult to wish to experiment and secondly because they are more likely to develop an addiction, medical research suggests. 

This means parents and families for a start, followed by churches and schools. The easy way, of announcing that it is totally wrong and forbidden, is unlikely to strike a strong chord in the modern teenager, so it has to be done the hard way, by persuasion and by getting teenagers to recognise that they could be wrecking their lives and their futures. 

It would also help, as the more perceptive have already noticed, if the parents and teachers themselves were not guzzling a bottle of brandy a day while they lectured.

Hypocrisy is something that teenagers can pick up easily. It will almost certainly involve a lot more peer-to-peer support and pressure. Some take the low road because “everybody does it”, and building teams and communities who take the higher road is one way of making that statement nonsense.

We also need to build up support networks for those who do become addicted, or who consumption is growing towards the addiction levels. 

One of the most effective organisations to build on is Alcoholics Anonymous, which is totally non-judgmental since you have to be an alcoholic to join, but who divide alcoholics into the sober alcoholics, who follow a hard programme of never drinking again, and the drunk alcoholics, who let their addiction rip. 

They point out an obvious truth that an addiction to any drug is always there once reached, but that there are ways to live without giving into the addiction, and that some of the most effective counselling comes from those who have been through what the addict is now going through. 

In other countries addicts of other substances have formed similar self-help groups. 

But it would be infinitely better if addicts did not become addicts in the first place, and it is here that we need to make sure we can show a better path, and that the real happiness and real achievement come from the hard work in living a decent and productive life, rather than from chemical highs. 

That means we all need to care and be willing to help each other through the really bad patches that we all meet on life’s journey.