Uganda: Drugs - Country No Longer a Conduit, Now a Consumer

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New Vision (Kampala)

10 October 2008
Posted to the web 11 October 2008

Steven Candia And Angella Asiimire
Kampala

UGANDA'S topography as far as narcotic drugs are concerned has changed fundamentally and for the worse, if recent revelations by authorities are anything to go by.

Uganda is not only a conduit for hard narcotic drugs - heroin and cocaine - but has turned into a consumer.

This leaves the nation staring in the face of looming danger of the ramifications of increased local consumption of the drugs.

Details emerged recently as 7kg of seized cocaine and 1,125 pellets of heroine equivalent to more than 11,250grammes, all with a street value of over $547,500 (sh884.2m), seized between 2005 and 2007, were set ablaze.

Police chief Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura said the nation had since left the role of only being a passage and had now qualified itself as a destination for hard narcotic drugs, which hitherto only transited through the country to West Africa and Europe.

He was swift to warn of a looming disaster if left unchecked. "If we don't move fast, we may lose an entire generation."

What is more worrying is the pace at which local consumption of heroin and the more deadly and destructive cocaine is growing.

"It is becoming pervasive," he warned and called for a massive campaign, similar to that aimed at fighting HIV/AIDS, to check local consumption.

As if to lend credence to the change, rehabilitation centres, have mushroomed in the country, Kayihura said and blamed foreigners for the local consumption.

"I am aware that both the CID and other security organisations are following clues about a certain racket of foreigners who have started getting these drugs to our children," he said at the destruction of a huge seizure of narcotic drugs at the Nsambya Police barracks.

Details emerged as a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported significant changes, showing an upward trend of cocaine use in Africa and blaming the rise in local consumption on continued use of the continent as conduits or shipment points, an aspect that is particularly true about Uganda.

"The increasing use of African countries for cocaine transshipment could be contributing to rising levels of cocaine use. In 2005, 10 African countries reported an increase in cocaine use, up from eight and seven in 2004 and 2003 respectively. The number of African countries reporting stable cocaine markets remained unchanged in 2004 and 2005 (at nine)," the 2007 World Drug Report notes.

The report also highlights the increasing use of Africa as a major transshipment point for cocaine, pointing out that the biggest seizures over time have been made on the continent.

"Cocaine is trafficked to Europe via the Caribbean and, increasingly, Africa. Over the 2000-

2005 period, the largest increases in cocaine seizures were reported by countries in Africa and West and Central Europe," the reports said, noting that in Africa, seizures rose six-fold as compared to a fourfold rise in West and Central Europe.

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