The rich using drugs to kill our children’s future, says Archbishop Ssemogerere
What you need to know:
- Archbishop Ssemogerere warns that the country will not have future successors if the concerned people do not come out now and help the youths who have been sunk into drug abuse.
The Archbishop of Kampala has warned that the widespread use of drugs by the youth, if not checked now, poses a national disaster.
Archbishop Ssemogerere, while speaking during the Easter Sunday Mass at the Rubaga Cathedral in Kampala yesterday, said: “We have a national disaster waiting if we do not check drug abuse among the youth. We shall not only have broken individuals, but broken families and a broken nation.”
“There is an increasing habit where drugs are being brought in by the rich to mislead our young ones and destroy them. Let’s be mindful and help our children to grow so that they have the future they desire,” he pleaded.
Archbishop Ssemogerere warned that the Church and the country will not have future successors if the concerned people do not come out now and help the youths who have been sunk into drug abuse.
“Our leaders of today, you keep telling the youths that they are the leaders of tomorrow, how will they become leaders when you don’t support them now?” he asked.
The Archbishop warned: “This is a call to the government, the Speaker of Parliament, all civil servants, civil society organisations, and all other people, even in the Church. Our silence in this matter can no longer be an option, let’s speak up and encourage our young ones not to resort to these dangerous drugs to destroy themselves and their future.”
The warning by Archbishop Ssemogerere comes a few days after this publication and NTV-Uganda ran a series of investigative stories last week that unearthed how drugs are easily sneaked into universities and other institutions of higher learning.
About the drugs
The investigative piece revealed that the narcotic drugs get into the universities through drug dealers called plugs.
The investigation singled out the most common drugs that are sold among students as marijuana, which is variedly referred to as weed or enjaga, tobacco, and methamphetamine or meth, a derivative from the parent amphetamine, which the National Institute on Drug Abuse describes as a “powerful, highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system”.
The inquiry also identified other types of drugs as codeine – a medication usually given to relieve pain or suppress a cough – but can be abused and used as a narcotic drug, cocaine, and ecstasy.
Sources this publication spoke to during the investigation also said there are pills, among them the prescription painkiller tramadol, which people irregularly buy over the counter in an apparent collusion between clients and some pharmacies.
Narcotic drugs are those that, when taken, relieve pain, dull the senses, and make one get into a stupor. Although a number of these substances have medicinal benefits, people tend to abuse them and use them for non-medical purposes.
Church pleads
Archbishop Ssemogerere said the Church is worried because the youths who make up the majority population of the country are being ruined and the country cannot keep silent on the matter.
The 2024 Census report by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) indicates that the country’s population is 45.9 million people, with some 10.7 million of them aged between 18–30 years, while another 22.7 million are below 18 years.
Ubos defines a youth as a person who is aged between 18 and 30 years.
Archbishop Ssemogerere said parents should play a vital role and instill hope in these youthful populations and ensure they do not abuse drugs.
“I call upon all parents, adults, schools, and different agencies to stand with these children, give them hope, because they are our tomorrow. Our children should not commit suicide but rather do what they are supposed to do by engaging in meaningful activities and serve this world and make it a better place for the rest,” he said.
“To parents, the child remains a child in your eyes, even if they know more than you do. Among the unique features God gave you is raising a child, so leaving them to go astray is bad.
“To our children, stop going astray by embracing what will finish you up. Like abusing drugs, I didn’t know that Brown Sugar is also an abused drug until I saw it in the news. Butabika hospital is full, the country is full of stress, but we must have hope,” he warned.
In Monitor investigative piece, Brown Sugar is slang used by drug users and dealers to refer to heroine.
Scope of the problem
Earlier this year, Dr Juliet Nakku, the executive director of Butabika National Referral Hospital, revealed that a significant number of graduates are among their mental health patients currently admitted to the facility.
Dr Nakku, who was speaking during an interview with this publication, linked the increased mental health issues among the graduates and other youths to drug and alcohol abuse.
“We have so many graduates in Butabika from different courses – engineers, lawyers, among others. These are not able to be productive because of mental health which is primarily caused by them [drugs],” she said.
“The mental health among youth has been a problem, especially after Covid-19, over the last three years…. More than 70 percent of the population are youths who are now suffering a lot of mental health including mild, moderate. We are seeing the common mental disorders like depression, anxiety, and sadly, alcohol and substance abuse,” she added.
Dr Nakku said the problem was becoming an epidemic in the country because the young people are taking a lot of alcohol and using a lot of drugs like cocaine, crystal mathe, cannabis, khat, and many more, which she described as very dangerous.
“In the past, we used to think that people who drink heavily and use drugs were the uneducated and had nothing to lose but these days we are seeing young and well-educated people, graduates, including doctors, nurses, lawyers, engineers, IT specialists, taking drugs and alcohol and becoming mental health problems,” she said.
