Oshakati — Namibia’s drug crisis continues to deepen, with over N$160.6 million price of dagga confiscated by regulation enforcement between January 2023 and July 2024.
In step with police data, medication valued at N$49.3 million were seized in 2023, resulting in 1 641 arrests. This 365 days has already recorded drug seizures price N$56.7 million, with 1 623 suspects arrested.
One in every of the ultimate breakthroughs took place closing month, when a dagga plantation valued at over N$52 million was uncovered at Farm Eendrag, located between Hochfeld and Osire.
While these figures visual show unit regulation enforcement’s success, to boot they spotlight a rising social crisis–younger lives falling aside under the burden of addiction.
A existence derailed
A 16-years-extinct youngster from Windhoek, whose existence has spiralled because of dagga addiction. Once a shiny and peculiar learner, he dropped out of college leisurely closing 365 days and now lives with a chum, who is also addicted.
“I left home because my mother used to shout at me all the time. I would get irritated and feel like she didn’t understand me. So, I decided to leave and go smoke dagga freely. But now I realise she was only trying to help me,” he admitted.
Now residing a “life without rules,” he and his friend, who lost both of us, continually resort to petty theft to feed their addiction.
“We can’t go a day without it. So, we steal, sell, and use the money to buy dagga,” he talked about.
He printed he was lately released from detention heart after being arrested for stealing a cell phone. “I just wanted to smoke, and I didn’t have money,” he talked about.
Filled with remorse, he says he needs to return home but is panicked.
“I think I’ve killed the love my mother had for me,” he talked about, his declare breaking.
A mother’s ache
His mother, confirmed that her son began the use of dagga some years within the past. She talked about family items–including her phone, dear pots, and groceries–began disappearing.
“When I tried to intervene, he accused me of mistreating him. He said I didn’t respect his choices. Then he left. I haven’t seen him in months,” she talked about.
After all, she says she keeps her son’s room precisely as he left it, hoping he’ll return and rebuild his existence.
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“I just want him to be okay, to get help. He still has a future if he comes home,” she talked about softly.
Sources on the subject of the family bid he is continually seen wandering around the Okandjengedi space and placing out with known drug dealers. Police suspect he would possibly well perchance perchance per chance furthermore merely were recruited by a neighborhood side road network linked to elevated drug syndicates, equivalent to those within the help of the illegal plantation realized at Eendrag.
Childhood vulnerability
In step with Oshana regional commander, Commissioner Naftal Lungameni Sakaria, many younger other folks infected about drug cases are launched to dagga with out working out its dangers.
“Many think it’s a harmless plant. But dagga impairs brain development, concentration, and decision-making in teenagers. It’s causing school dropouts, petty crime, and broken families,” Sakaria talked about.
He added that drug syndicates continually use younger other folks as runners or lookouts–particularly in metropolis areas–on memoir of they are “easy targets.”
“They’re unemployed, desperate, and many come from broken homes or lack proper support systems,” he explained.
Psychological affect
Scientific psychologist Sirkka Johannes warned that early and frequent use of dagga can outcome in prolonged-time length psychiatric disorders in younger other folks, including despair, fear, and in extreme cases, psychosis.
“Dagga is not harmless. Its impact on the adolescent brain is real, and we’re seeing a surge in drug-related mental health cases among young people,” she talked about.
As Namibia’s regulation enforcement agencies continue their crackdown on drug manufacturing and distribution, experts and families alike are calling for additional enhance structures for younger other folks at possibility of addiction–sooner than it’s too leisurely.
