Uganda: Is Your Child Taking This Drug?
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New Vision (Kampala)
10 October 2008
Posted to the web 11 October 2008
Lydia Namubiru
Kampala
A highly addictive, intoxicating drug is being openly sold in Ugandan shops and supermarkets.
The drug, sold under the brand name 'Kuber', is disguised as a mouth freshener and packed in sachets similar to tea leaves pouches. The nicotine-rich stimulant is being widely consumed by secondary school students and taxi drivers to get high.
"If you put it into hot water and take it like tea, you get very drunk," a 16-year-old studentcurrently admitted to Butabika Hospital for abusing drugs including kuber, reveals.
Kikonyogo Kivumbi, a teacher in Nansana, recently wrote to the New Vision letter section saying: "I have seen many children chew kuber. Children get extremely high on this drug but are undetected by teachers because it has no smell."
Dr. David Basangwa, a psychiatrist at Butabika, says he has treated patients who got mental illnesses after taking kuber. "By law, it is considered a social drug like cigarettes but we know that it is quite addictive."
The Police is investigating the product. "We have received numerous complaints from people that kuber is of a psychotic nature and we have bought samples to take to the Government chemist," says Asan Kasingye, the police commissioner for community affairs. "It is mostly sold in Indian shops and people say they go into a trance when they use it."
Kasingye promises that the public will be warned if Kuber is found to contain any illegal substance or drug. "However, even if it contains only tobacco, we shall still investigate whether or not it gets the right customs clearance as other tobacco products."
Officials at the National Drug Authority described kuber as a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant.
CNS stimulants are drugs that increase behavioural activity, thought processes and alertness or elevate the mood of an individual.Examples are amphetamine, caffeine, nicotine and cocaine.
Since it is imported as a mouth freshener, kuber goes into the market without the approval of NDA.
Florence Nakacwa, a drugs assessment officer, criticised the manufacturers for making such a product without labelling the sachets to show the ingredients. "This means that it does not even meet our basic labelling requirements. How do such products come into the country?"
She added that even if the product contains only tobacco, it would be misleading to market it as a mouth freshener.
Kuber, the finely ground tobacco, is often chewed with khat (mairungi) leaves, sucked at alone or taken with hot water like a beverage.
America's National Cancer Institute classifies it as a brand of smokeless tobacco.
According to the institute, smokeless tobacco contains 28 cancer causing agents and its users take in three to four times more nicotine (the addictive substance in tobacco) than cigarette smokers, making it that many times more addictive.
Basangwa cautions that kuber is a cause for concern because of the mental health issues associated with it. "It impairs memory and causes depression," he says, adding, "even mere addiction to it is a mental problem." He says unlike harder drugs like cocaine, kuber may not cause drastic mental disorder, but warns that if used for a long period it may narrow the blood vessels to the brain which results into overt mental illness.
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The Police is also investigating another product that is believed to be psychotic but is sold as drinking water. Sources, however, refused to reveal the brand name of the product, saying investigations have just began.
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