I grew up with Samson about 30 years ago in my rural home in Kianjogu, Kiambu. He was my classmate and best friend back then. Samson was a smart student and the envy of his peers due to his sterling performance both in class and out in the field.
All went well until Form Two in Secondary school when classmates started accusing him of stealing books from the library. He was eventually expelled and became an addict and a mental patient in the village. He drunk and smoked anything that made him high. Interestingly, Samson was able to master bible verses and became a preacher of sorts. But no one took him seriously as villagers always dismissed him as a bhang smoker. He always said he wanted to become an Engineer.
Today, parents in my rural village use him as an example, always cautioning their children on the effects of bhang, or else they will end up like Samson. In my career as a Crime Reporter stationed in Nairobi, I was surprised to learn that Bhang is always readily available in almost every estate. As a non-smoker, you may not know where to find it, but users and buyers know each other so well and can easily adapt to the different environment whenever they move.
A recent report by the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) documents increased use of bhang among the youth in the country. According to the report, “about 14 percent, people aged 15 to 24 years, are actively using Marijuana or have experimented with using the drug.”
“When you start using Marijuana when you are young, below the age of 18, chances of being addicted to it are higher than a person who started using it while they are older,” Wangui Mucara, the Clinical Director Nueva Esperanza Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre says.
“It is more worrying because it is young people who are mostly using it. The effects are dire; mental, social, and physiological,” she says. And according to a bhang peddler in Lucky Summer estate in Nairobi who spoke to this Reporter, for the decade he has been in business, he has made more money during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that more and more people, particularly the youth are using drugs and because schools, colleges and universities are closed.
“I call myself a deadly sniper because I have only been arrested four times for the 10 years I have been selling bhang,” the peddler, whom we will refer to as John for this article, says with a sense of pride in his voice. He said he inherited the business from his mother who ‘retired’. From the profits of this illicit business, John told me he has managed to purchase a small plot in Nairobi. He says he makes up to Sh5,000 a day from the illicit business.
He shows off his 80 by 50 plot of land where he is building his house bought from the proceeds of selling Marijuana to the youth, many of whose lives are at the mercy of others. John claims his supplies come from Ethiopia through Moyale before they are sneaked to the capital, Nairobi.
Like many peddlers and users, John, himself a smoker believes bhang has no dire effects on anyone’s health, and he is terribly wrong at it going by the number of people whose live have been ruined for using it. “I use it to connect with Jah,” he claims, “It makes me feel like I am having a conversation with him.”
And there are those who use bhang to enhance their sexual performance, appetite, and zeal at work. Mostly casual laborers. “I cannot go to work (construction) without smoking a joint or two,” Michael, one of John’s loyal customers says. Michael spends to Sh250 on bhang alone daily. Then there is peer pressure, including from parts of Europe where the drug was legalized, including for medicinal purposes.
“Here (in Kenya), it is a street drug coming from all over. There is no way of knowing the potency of one joint from another. Sometimes it is laced with other things and so the harmful effects are more common and more lethal.” -Suicidal Tendencies among bhang consumers-
Like Samson, my childhood friend, says you will find consumers start neglecting their duties, even the simplest ones like bathing.
“Mentally, you find someone when he or she is high or has not used it (bhang) showing symptoms that are related to psychosis where somebody becomes irritable, violent, start saying they can hear voices,” Mucara explains.
She says those who use bhang have suicidal tendencies and an equally higher rate of developing depression. “Generally, they are more anxious than other people and they also develop paranoia- that extreme fear that you cannot explain,” the physiologist says.
“Bhang inhibits your thinking capacity and dilutes your brain. At some point in their lives, they may start getting the feeling of hopelessness and start becoming anti-social,” experts say.
The link of use of bhang and suicide, she says, limits their problem-solving skills. Experts have ruled out claims that Marijuana can enhance one’s intelligence level. It’s a myth. Several attempts to have Marijuana legalised in Kenya has been opposed, with Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi vowing “it will not happen. We are a responsible government.”
But despite rehabilitation centres set up across the country, little success has been registered due to the easy availability of the drug in the dark market.
In Kiambu County, Ferdinand Waititu, who was impeached as Governor, spent millions on a rehabilitation program targeting addicts but it did not work. -NACADA report on use of Bhang in Kenya- Of bhang users in the country, Coast has the highest number of people experiencing related disorders at 2.8 percent followed by Nairobi at 1.9 percent. North-Eastern region recorded the lowest prevalence of bhang use disorders.
