1.

Role of the health sector of your country in trying to reduce drug abuse
As the country is widely scotched by drug abuse, the health sector of the country has been called
to curb the social problem in Zimbabwe. Its approach to this is of a dual nature namely
preventative and adaptive measure to combat the abuse of drugs before occurrence and deal with
it when it does. The preventative approach to this has been evident in the health sectors role in
capacity and resilience building through advocacy of support systems in communities and
institutions that exist in society. Examples of these are the establishment of counselling
departments in schools, recreational youth centers and community family events. This is all in
appreciation of the fact that drug abuse in youths are made possible due to lack of psychosocial
support systems and idleness due to high rates of unemployment as well as school dropouts.
There is also the use of awareness campaigns through roadshows that educate the public on the
dangers and effects of drug abuse. The public health sector through the ministry of health uses
advocacy and lobbying as a preventative measure against drug abuse. The health sector, private
and public has also ventured in the adaptive approach whereby it deals with the drug abuse
already existent in Zimbabwe through the introduction of rehabilitation centers. These centers
are directly providing counselling services and scientific methods of detoxification to victims of
drug abuse in communities mostly affected e.g low density suburbs.
2. Problems associated with drug abuse
Aside from direct consequences on the drug abusers themselves, drug abuse has direct and
indirect effects on communities and society at large. Amongst these, is the rise in social crimes
such as theft and prostitution by drug abuse subjects to fund their addiction. This is evident in the
records of high burglary cases in low density suburbs where drug abuse is severe. For youths, it
has led to the increase in school dropouts through flanking out or lack of a general interest in
anything else but the abuse of drugs throughout each day. It is also a truth that most drug abusers
cannot effectively hold down a job thereby resulting in massive unemployment in communities.
This indirectly affects the demography of the society with regards to standards of living and
quality of life in drug abuse rampant communities. From a social perspective, drug abuse is also
detrimental to relationships with families and friends due to tensions rising every time a subject
acts irrationally as drug abusers are known to be unreliable. Therefore, drug abuse has effects on
the environment that the abusers live in across all contexts, social and economic.
3. Effects of drug abuse
However, the above are just mere examples of the indirect and secondary effects of drug abuse.
The direct and primary effects are more towards the drug abusers themselves and their
relationship to society across all sectors of life e.g physical, mental and economic. For example,
people who abuse drugs frequently are prone to suffer from long term drug effects such as dug
related seizures, abdorminal pain, and liver cirrhosis. The abuse of drugs generally exposes the
body to a wide range of diseases as it weakens the human immune system. Drug abuse, on a
mental level, causes brain damage, hallucinations and weakens one’s ability to act rationally
which in turn affects one’s actions when under the influence. As a result, social relations are
strained and ruined leaving the subject with little to no support system outside of other drug
abusers. This is the main reason why most drug abusers have strained relations with their
families and are either homeless or unemployed, in worst cases…both. One would then argue
that all this factors into the economic sector where we find that most drug abusers are
unemployed and economically ineffective. This is in understanding that the above social and
physical effects of drugs make it virtually impossible for subjects to maintain a life of
employment in neither the formal nor the informal sector. Therefore, in the long run, drug
abusers cannot afford to provide themselves with the basic needs particularly food and shelter
leading to increased chances of starvation which in turn gives rise to crime.

4. Measures to combat drug abuse

If the war on drugs and against drug abuse is to be won, there is need for the government to
acknowledge drug abuse as a real problem and allocate adequate resources towards curbing and
preventing it. It is highly inadequate to criminalize the abuse of drugs without legal framework
and police systems that make it very undesirable to abuse drugs as murder is. To combat drug
abuse, it is imperative for the government to adopt some employment creation and community
revitalization policies that make it timely and physically impossible for people to abuse drugs
within communities. However, the creation of employment and community recreational centers
is merely a treatment of symptoms and not the disease. The decision to abuse drugs is
psychological thereby creating the need for effective capacity and resilience building activities
within communities and institutions such as churches and school provide counselling services
and psychosocial support that provide better and alternate ways of coping with adversity.