SUBSTANCE ABUSE BY THE YOUNG INCREASES BY 71% IN KENYA IN FOUR YEARS AS YOUNGSTERS BARELY OUT OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TAKE LEAD IN CRIME
 
The youth of any nation form a bountiful resource to behold and admire, while it may not be quite easy to define who a youth is, it is generally agreed that the teenagers and the young adults not only hold a nations’ posterity but also ensure economic growth and defence of their nation. For this noble task these people must be healthy in soul, body and mind. 

That the youth in Kenya have greatly indulged in crime and drug abuse is a truth not contestable, infact many have been turned into Zombies by drugs, and several killed in crime while many others languish in prisons for the same. Despite these harsh repercussions, the alarming rate at which our youth continue to indulge in these menaces calls for all of us who care to do something to arrest the situation.

Though youth crime and substance abuse is obviously not restricted to Kenya, it is important to briefly highlight the situation.

On substance abuse which includes alcohol and other drugs; the information from the Kenyan press, which captures the real situation is disturbing and captivating. For instance, on Saturday June 21st 2008 the widely read Newspaper -the Daily Nation in its lead report titled ‘Revealed: students drowning in alcohol’ indicated from a well documented research by the Africa Mental Health Foundation that ‘in the past 4 years, the use of alcohol and other drugs among young people has increased by a staggering 71%’. These experts called for the government and other players to tackle this worrying trend whose aftermath has seen the increase in mental illness.

According to Dr. Kitazi the medical superintendent at Mathari National Mental Hospital the average age of those in rehabilitation ‘for alcohol, tobacco and cannabis is 24years’ and “the cost of treatment weighs heavily on the parents and the economy”. According to two studies carried out in 17 public secondary schools in Nairobi, a large number of school going children as young as 13 years admitted taking beer, wine, spirits and cigarettes among other drugs. This abuse of drugs has been pointed out to be the major cause of the high HIV-AIDS infection rate among the youth.

On the high crime rate among the Kenyan youth, over the years there have been press reports of young people involved in crime. For example, the Daily Nation Newspaper of 22/08/2006 page 4 report titled “Teenagers are charged with violent Robbery” gave a detailed report of how “two youths aged 16 and 17 years accused of violent robbery were put on their defence by a Nairobi court” on 21/08/2006.

About one month before this, the same Newspaper of 18/7/06 in its page1 report “Mob kills six card players and set their bodies on fire” highlighted that the mob rounded up the six, battered them to death and set their bodies on fire on claims that they were robbers and rapists behind a wave of crime in Nakuru town. This newspaper of 19/7/2006 page 23 continued that “4 of them were aged between 19 -20years”.

Earlier reports do also confirm this scenario, for instance the Daily Nation of 26/1/2004 quoting the then Buruburu Police Chief reported that most criminals in the Eastlands part of Nairobi ‘are aged between 15 and 25 years’. While the Sunday Nation of 4/12/2005 page 4 decried “that youngster barely out of primary school have taken to violent crime in the city” just as the Daily Nation of 3/12/2005 report titled the “youth take the lead in crime wave” equally confirm this sad state.

Infact when the minister for trade and industry and his bodyguard were carjacked, molested and robbed 280,000 Kenya shillings and other valuables on 3/7/06 in Nairobi, he later described to the press that his attackers “were menacing young men” (see the Daily Newspapers of 5/7/06).

The situation in learning institutions is not different, press reports have confirmed that student riots and strikes which has caused deaths, for example the Kyanguli Secondary school fire tragedy of 2001 where 67 students died; both the police and the National Agency for the campaign against Drug Abuse (NACADA) in its’ October 2002 study attributed these youth crime to drug abuse, this underpins the need to tackle the two simultaneously as this organization does.

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To be involve in the reformation and rehabilitation of the young people already in crime and substance abuse.