Harm reduction in Tanzania: An urgent need for multisectoral intervention
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Date
2007
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
The International journal on drug policy
Abstract
The Tanzanian ‘war on drugs’
From mid-November 2006 to early February 2007, the Tanzanian media regularly covered their
government’s “War on Drugs”. Another November 2006 editorial cartoon enti-tled “War on
Drugs” featured a boa constrictor squeezing a man to death. The boa’s head, symbolically shaped
as a marijuana leaf, was preparing to swallow the drug user it had crushed (Kinya, 2006).
Governmental response to trafficking includes destroying farms and plots producing marijuana.
In another editorial cartoon focused on heroin trafficking, a young Member of Parliament, Amina
Chifupa, is featured sitting on a bomb labelled ‘drug dealers. She is lighting a
match as if preparing to light the bomb’s fuse and is thinking, “Give me a chance, I”ll blow that!”
(Danny, 2006). During mid-November, Ms Chifupa had called upon members of Parliament to
talk genuinely about the problem of heroin trafficking and reveal the names of drug barons
(Kulekana, 2006). She was hounded by the press for days with both positive and negative stories
written about her activities and relationships.
By December, the media began focusing reports and edi-torials on a list of 200+ names of
high-level business and government leaders that they reported had been circulated to high levels
of the government. Media announcements that these individuals were being watched for their
involvement in drug trafficking dominated the news. Editorials warned of blacklisting and a
December 3rd editorial cartoon showed a businessman and a young associate sitting at a table
drinking beers. The younger man is saying, “Boss, your name is in the drug dealers’ list, you
should quit the business!” The boss replies, “Don’t worry, lists of names are always there, nothing
can be done!” (Abeid, 2006). Media reports, editorials, pictures and the parliamentary debate about
outing suspected drug barons heightened the general public’s understanding that Tanzania was
part of an international trafficking network and that heroin had joined the ranks of marijuana, khat,
and “gongo” as illicit substances consumed locally.
The lengths to which drug traffickers go to move theirproduct and the extent to which
Tanzanian youths are involved in the trade was revealed to the public in late December. During
the 2006 Christmas holidays several young Tanzanian men were arrested for transporting a corpse
of a colleague containing 59 pellets of heroin (This Day, 2007). The idea that Tanzanians would
use a friend’s or anybody to transport heroin was a shocking realization for many. Popular music
and slang reveal that these arrests were not an isolated incident. A Swahili pop song’s tongue-in-
cheek lyric about an IDU’s ‘friend’s’ suggestion to plead guilty and go to prison where he would
enjoy free room and board notes the reality IDUs in Tanzania experience (Maembe, n.d.).
After injecting heroin became popular during 2001 and cheap pure heroin began to dominate the
local market during 2003, Tanzanian police and security officials focused on both drug trafficking
and local consumption. During the latter half of 2006, the Tanzanian government’s largely
successful efforts to reduce heroin trafficking at the international airports led traffickers to focus
on land routes. Escalated bursts of police activities have resulted in roundups of sellers and users.
© 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2007.05.001
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Keywords
Harm reduction, Multisectoral intervention, Tanzania
Citation
McCurdy, S., Kilonzo, G.P., Williams, M. and Kaaya, S., 2007. Harm reduction in Tanzania: An urgent need for multisectoral intervention. The International journal on drug policy, 18(3), pp.155-159.