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Many outside the world of illegal drugs will be surprised at the flow of mbanje into Zimbabwe from South Africa, and the quantities are large and the smuggling is sophisticated.

While there was not much cross-border smuggling of mbanje before, since the drug grows reasonably well across the region so there was little profit in taking extra risk, although the most discerning abusers of the drug reckoned Eswatini and Malawi grew the best, recent research in South Africa has produced a new variety, skanky, which has created a new market.

Skanky does not produce the strong and tell-tale odour that instantly identifies an mbanje smoker, both while they smoke and for some time after, and so for obvious reasons there are abusers and addicts ready to pay the extra. And the new varieties also mean that we are far more likely to have people under the influence of drugs when they are working or moving around.

One factor that ameliorated the damage from mbanje was the fact that a smoker under the influence advertised this, so the smoking tended to be done in private at home, or at least not in public or when on duty.

The danger probably needs to be highlighted.

Most people are aware of colleagues or others they work with who drink alcohol on duty or smoke mbanje on duty, but are probably not aware that their colleague is abusing drugs, and at the moment there are no breathalyser-style tests that can be applied, so no way for an employer of people who operate machinery to tell if a person is in fact not fully capable of doing that safely.

To show the dangers, there are strong rumours among the cognoscenti that even some kombi drivers puff away this new variety while driving or between trips, with the passengers oblivious to the dangers that their drivers are creating.

At present the growers of skanky use greenhouses in South Africa and go to some lengths to prevent others getting hold of the seed of any new varieties or the composition of any chemicals used to process the drug. But the drug peddlers are buying it in large quantities from what is being seen in police seizures in Zimbabwe.

We have had bus passengers caught with 16kg at Beitbridge and a shipment of 62kg was extracted from the chassis of a bus in Masvingo, which suggests that the police drug unit has been cultivating contacts. Bags of this new mbanje variety have been found in searches of cars.

Recent reports from the police and the National Prosecuting Authority saw seizures in less than a week totalling for more than 100kg from buses, bus passengers and car occupants, some in routine searches and some after what look like tip-offs.

Our crystal meth also mostly comes from South Africa while cocaine, probably the third most common drug although quantities are much lower, has been smuggled directly from producing countries in South America. Heroin is also largely smuggled in by air.

Fairly obviously the police and other law enforcement agencies have to redouble efforts to track down the drugs, and have to keep their intelligence systems active to respond to new drugs and new varieties of drugs.

At some stage, for example, this new skanky variety will be grown and processed in Zimbabwe and the police will need to know what to look for to close down the farming.

But while maintaining pressure on smugglers and peddlers and growers will help, it does that by increasing the cost of drugs.

Unfortunately, so long as there is a market, people will take risks to smuggle and sell drugs, and when those dealing with the drugs are arrested and jailed, others will step into their shoes and continue running the markets.

The arrests over the past week seem to show that someone has been hiring mules, since it is unlikely that bus crews and bus passengers are the prime dealers with networks of peddlers and perhaps the courts could look at treating those who tell the authorities everything more leniently.

Providing information of criminal activity is a mitigating circumstance, reducing sentences, and it is possible for an accomplice to miss a jail term altogether if their evidence is critical in a prosecution of a more dangerous and important criminal.

But at the same time we need to continue building up the pressures to stop people taking and abusing drugs.

This is largely a job of education and persuasion but is the best way to close down the drug trade.

If there are no buyers and abusers of drugs there are no sales and so there are no dealers and smugglers.

Zimbabwe has been scoring successes with the double attack on the problem, taking dealers to court and having them jailed, while those with small non-commercial quantities have been escaping with fines. Even though many dealers are charged, convicted and sentenced for possession rather than dealing, once you are proved to be in possession of commercial quantities the courts do sentence you as a dealer, and rightly so.

But we need to also step up pressure on pure users. We have suggested before that when someone is allowed to pay an admission of guilt fine for a single mbanje joint, that needs to be recorded in a database, so that when they are picked up a second time or third time they are treated as a repeat offender and eventually may well have to be either committed to compulsory rehabilitation or to jail.

At the same time many of us see what is going on in our communities, and we should be more willing to inform and involve the police.

Simply sending a message on a phone when you see a dealer operating, or are even approached by a dealer, helps the police build up the information they need to raid and arrest dealers.

A community actively taking even this low level action against dealers will help push them out of their area, by making it too hot to hold them, and that will help reduce abuse in their area as well.