Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen on Thursday, February 13, proposed bringing in National Intelligence Service (NIS) officers to universities in the country to curb drug and alcohol abuse.
Speaking during the launch of the report on the Status of Drug and Substance Abuse in Universities in Kenya by the National Authority for the Campaign against Drug and Alcohol Abuse (NACADA), the CS seemingly intimated that this was a practice in the past and would assist in bringing an end to the menace.
“You know, in the past, we were told, I don’t know, we used to be told that some of the students we saw at the university were not students. We used to be told they were police officers, intelligence officers, they were busy,” he stated.
“Why don’t we go back there IG (Kanja) to make sure that we have intelligence officers working within the university, with the university students, and with police officers? This will help us get proper intelligence and proper intervention in dealing with drugs and drug abuse,” Murkomen averred.
His proposal came on the back of NACADA’s report revealing that alcohol was the most available substance among university students at 87.3 per cent, followed by cigarettes at 64.4 per cent and shisha at 41.2 per cent.
Further, the report highlighted that cannabis was the most accessible narcotic amongst university students at 61.7 per cent followed by cannabis edibles such as weed-laced cookies and juice at 47.6 per cent.
Urging the need for greater involvement of law enforcement to combat the drug menace, Murkomen also called upon Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja to give greater resources to police stations near major universities.
“IG, we need to strengthen all the police stations near the universities whether it is Central Police in Nairobi, in Rongai near (Africa) Nazarene University, or the one near Kenyatta University (KU) with deliberate inter-agency efforts within the police to see how we can integrate these investigations,” the CS stated.
His sentiments were echoed by the police boss who revealed that plans were underway to incorporate drug trafficking operations in the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) to ensure more stringent measures are taken against drugs. The ATPU carries greater resources that will be able to scale up efforts against drug abuse.
The data of the study by NACADA was obtained through a study population composed of undergraduate students from both public and private universities in the country.
A total of 15,678 respondents were interviewed translating to a response rate of 99.7 percent. Public universities accounted for 61.5 per cent, while private universities had 38.5 per cent.
The male respondents were higher than the females with 54.2 percent and 45.2 percent respectively.
