A woman implicated in the trafficking of 531 kilos of bhang which was seized at a home compound within Buembu village in Migori was arrested Tuesday.
Police said Molinter Adhiambo Juma, 26 was nabbed at the said homestead in an operation conducted by a joint team of DCI detectives backed up by their K9 Isebania Border Post counterparts. In the stealth operation, nine sacks of cannabis sativa sticks and another eight containing the unrefined drug were found at various concealed spots by the help of a sniffer dog.
An unidentified male suspect was in time to make good his escape from the scene leaving behind the woman and the prohibited hard drug worth over Sh15 million in street estimates.
Police believe the narcotics were headed for either Nairobi or Mombasa where the biggest demand is.
More than one million people in are currently smoking bhang in coast region.
National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (Nacada) CEO Anthony Omerikwa said consumption of bhang had risen by 90 percent.
He said the most affected area is in Coast region.
The use of bhang among Kenyans has almost doubled over the last five years with a 90 per cent increase over that period.
Data from the Nacada shows that one in every 53 Kenyans aged 15-65 years (518,807) are currently using cannabis, translating to a national prevalence rate of 1.9 per cent.
The report dubbed ‘Status of Drugs and Substance Use (DSU) in Kenya, 2022’ says of this figure, 475,770 are male while 43,037 are female.
“Nairobi region had the highest prevalence of current use of cannabis (6.3 percent) followed by Nyanza (2.4 percent) and Coast (1.9 percent),” the report said.
It showed that a total of 193,430 youth aged 15 – 24 years (one in every 37) were currently using cannabis translating to a 2.7 percent prevalence.
The figure for those aged 25 – 35 years stands at 174,142 (one in every 48) translating to a 2.1 percent prevalence rate.
The data shows that overall, 234,855 Kenyans aged 15 – 65 years or one in every 111 are addicted to cannabis are exhibit severe substance use disorders.
The number of bhang addicts in the 15-24 age bracket stands at 90,531 (one in every 77); 25-35-year-olds is 100,468 or one in every 83, giving an overall addiction rate of 47.4 percent.
“The growing demand for cannabis especially among the youth could be attributed to the low perception of harm due to myths, misinformation, and misconceptions,” the report noted.
The study, done in 2022, was a five-year survey conducted to assess the trends of drugs and substance use programming indicators.
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