EDITORIAL COMMENT: Growing drug problem needs effective action

The problem of illegal drugs is far worse than many people suspected and there are obviously organised criminal networks importing and supplying these drugs to what appears to be a growing market.

Unfortunately, there are also corrupt police officers involved, as the police themselves admit, some in the supply chain but probably far more taking pay-offs for “protection” or giving advance notice of raids and times and places of when undercover cops will be active.

We have a big problem all round. The extent of the network and the easy availability of illegal drugs has been found by some pretty basic investigative journalism. In a short stroll a reporter can easily find people who offer drugs, mainly mbanje and illegal cough syrups, but also with a small extra effort methamphetamine, crystal meth in street jargon in Zimbabwe, and even offers of introduction to cocaine dealers. Such investigation has not been a fancy sting operation, or taken much in the way of resources, just ordinary people going for stroll.

The police have also found, in their blitzes, that it is fairly easy to track down and arrest the street dealers, picking up more than 200 people in a weekend, again without a major call-out of officers or having to seal off areas. 

This sort of pressure on the street dealers has its uses. For a start, it appears to have disrupted some of the supply chains and made some drugs, such as methamphetamine, harder to find in some well-known points where street dealers hang out for casual customers, but in the end the effect will be limited. Neither dealers not customers are eager to give each other their phone numbers, but that could well happen if drugs are driven off the street and addicts become desperate to find someone who can sell them the next “fix”.

People say that addicts in the leafier suburbs can buy regular supplies with home delivery if they wish and can in any case arrange to meet a dealer, rather than wander around the streets looking for one. In some ways it is a bit like another social problem, prostitution, with some hookers trolling for customers on the streets, or before the lockdown in bars, and others relying on phone calls or recommendations to visit where they live and operate.

But unlike prostitution, which in Zimbabwe does not appear to involve organised networks, the far more damaging drug business must have supply chains and that makes it vulnerable to a well-resourced police operation by dedicated officers operating, if necessary, in small groups and with minimum contact with others in the police force.

Mbanje is grown in Zimbabwe, although there are stories of higher grade product imported from Malawi and Mozambique across our porous borders. But generally the supply chain must involve the grower, the wholesaler and the street distributors. 

Those illegal cough syrups must involve smugglers, probably using the dozens of routes across the Limpopo, but someone must be organising the smugglers, or at least consolidating their small parcels carried across the river, and feeding the street dealers. It is highly unlikely that the hawker in central Harare in Mayor Urimbo Terrace is the smuggler and almost certain that this hawker buys in bulk from someone who does organise smuggling or is hired by that organiser on commission.

Methamphetamine and cocaine obviously involve organised criminal networks with the original source outside Africa. While technically methamphetamine can be manufactured in a home laboratory, the raw materials are not readily available in Zimbabwe, and even the processing from powders to the crystalline versions means a fixed laboratory that would be vulnerable to any modest police operation. 

Cocaine has to come from South America through some international supply chain, something we now know about since a drug mule was caught at Robert Mugabe International Airport early this year with 4,5kg of the drug, but that was a lucky break following a tip-off. We do not know how many other mules have managed to saunter past the customs officers with a couple of kilogrammes in their jacket lining.

These supply chains are important in any police operation. Pressure on street dealers, while it needs to be maintained, will only make the business a bit harder, and possibly drive up prices, a good thing if it makes newcomers less likely to start taking the drugs in the first place, but will not eliminate or seriously damage the business. 

Unfortunately, there will always be some people without jobs, or with poor jobs, willing to fill the ranks of the street dealers. Even developed countries with high levels of employment and unemployment benefits, have the expendable dealers who interact with the customers. 

But it may be possible to get arrested street dealers to start talking. While deal-making with criminals is always repugnant, it may be possible to offer a street dealer reduced charges, for example possession rather than selling, if they start to give details of who their wholesaler is. It is unlikely that they have the wholesaler’s name and address, but they can probably explain how they make contact and where the delivery takes place. That gives drug squad detectives a lead.

All these police operations, especially when we go after the middlemen and the big-time controllers, need care that nothing leaks out. That is why, for a start, the police officers involved have to be carefully selected and why they need to operate in small detached groups. It is a problem around the world that drug king-pins can corrupt some officers, if the stakes are big enough, so the fewer who know what is going on in each operation the better.

But while disrupting supply chains is essential, there needs a major effort to slash demand. If no one wants to buy the stuff in the first place then there is no business. This needs a double approach. A publicity campaign telling everyone of the health and other dangers, and we are talking brain damage here, can help and needs to be launched.

But it also needs to be backed up with proper health care for addicts. Simply fining or jailing users, as is the American practice for example, has been found to be a lot less successful than trying to rehabilitate them and get them off their addiction, the general European model. This could well require a great deal of co-operation between police, courts and health workers. 

For example a buyer who is open about the source of their drugs and who undergoes voluntary treatment could well have charges dropped, or be given a suspended sentence. It will not work in all cases, but can help dry up demand.

But whatever we do, the growing problem needs to be treated far more seriously. It is possibly still manageable, especially as most of the present abuse is with lower level drugs, but as the country gets richer and living standards improve, then we could well face a critical problem. More wealth opens more opportunities for dealers, and we need to close those doors now.

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