For the campus student who is well versed with
the medicinal value of Marijuana, or that one who is in a clique whose
definition of cool is to partake of the herb, they can only demand for the
strongest type.
A worrying trend where drug dealers are resorting
to uncouth ways to make the drugs they sell as strong as possible.
Our investigations which were focused on areas
which have universities in their sorroundings reveal that the bhang sold in
those areas are laced with petrol and ARVs.
The ARVs are crushed into powder which is mixed
with petrol. The resulting concortion is sprinkled on Marijuana which is then
dried and rolled ready for sale to the unsuspecting students.
In Jaramogi Odingo University of Science and
Technology, for instance, the students who buy Marijuana in Bondo town are
consuming ARVs in large volumes due to the practice.
The students think that
the weed, which is more popular than the one without the additives, is stronger
because it is imported from Uganda.
Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and
Technology, the Mecca of bhang consumption, is said to be the worst affected.
Known as Jujamaica in popular culture, the strongest weed is sold to the
students is believed to be from Ethiopia.
Many students are oblivious of the
fact that the weed is bought in bulk from Nairobi and mixed with chemical
substances that make the users dizzy and sickly making it look like it is the
true effect of Ethiopian weed.
The rising cases of students dropping out of
school in Chuka University can be squarely attributed to the toxic substances
being smoked by the student population.
Drug dealers who operate from the back
streets of Chuka Town behind the open air market and have their peddlers
stationed at Ndagani Market behind Muringa Bar have taken this a notch higher.
Their clients are mostly female students who are
not well versed with effects and consequences of smoking Marijuana. They sell
them the toxic concortions in the name of Shash when it is in real sense the
normal bhang mixed with Miraa, petrol, Kuber, and shoe gum.
One of the drug dealers we talked to in Karatina
says they mix the drug with the said substances because of the high demand
which they cannot meet due to logistics dfifficulties of having to transport
the drug from either Isiolo or Nairobi without getting caught by the police.
This is part one of drugs series Daily Updates is
running.
