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A young man carefully disassembles a fluorescent lamp and empties a small sachet of methamphetamine into the tube.
Using a lighter, the 24-year-old Zimbabwean heats it until the white crystals liquefy and begin to emit smoke.
Sitting in a room in Glen View, a working-class suburb of the capital Harare, he and a friend inhale the smoke through a straw.
The unemployed agriculture graduate, who has not been named to protect his privacy, started using the drug last year when the country came under strict lockdown.
Everything “stopped”, he says.
“We were at home, we had nothing to do, so we ended up taking drugs to get over our troubles,” he said, preparing to take an impromptu pipe puff.
“Drugs are a way to cure the pain and stress of being unproductive,” said the gangly guy.
“When I take crystal meth, I get a lot of energy,” he added.
The use of crystal meth adds to a cocktail of woes accompanying the coronavirus pandemic – economic hardship, unemployment, poverty and despair.
Psychiatrists say the drug is relatively new in Zimbabwe, and since it costs only US $ 3 per sachet, it is dangerously affordable.
Half of Zimbabwe’s population – around eight million people – live in extreme poverty, according to a recent study by the national statistics agency, UNICEF and the World Bank.
“There has been an alarming increase in drug addiction, especially during the lockdown,” said Harare-based psychiatrist Anesu Isabel Chinoperekwei.
More than two-thirds of its caseload is drug-related, while in public hospitals about 65% of psychiatric admissions are drug-related.
“Cheaper than alcohol”
“Crystal meth is a drug which has recently become more available and more widely used” in Zimbabwe, she said, because “it is cheaper than alcohol and ubiquitous, can be found anywhere even in the midst of this pandemic “.
Psychiatrists say crystal meth is relatively new in Zimbabwe, and because it costs only US $ 3 a sachet, it is dangerously affordable. By Jekesai NJIKIZANA (AFP) Police spokesman Paul Nyathi said he believed the drugs “had been smuggled across our borders” but declined to give further details.
Meanwhile, hospitals are under pressure from patients addicted to methamphetamine.
“We are now using more resources to tackle methamphetamine addiction at the expense of other mental health issues,” Chinoperekwei added.
There are growing fears that addiction to methamphetamine, known by various names, including “mutoriro” or “dombo” – Zimbabwe’s Shona language stone – could be the country’s most recent epidemic.
“Methamphetamine is perhaps the only substance that has rivaled the Covid-19 pandemic by killing Zimbabweans in the past two years,” a state-owned Sunday Mail writer recently said.
The authorities are aware of the crisis, which has mainly affected heavily populated and impoverished suburbs.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa warned of “improper tendencies” threatening “the fate of our youth”, stressing the urgency to “redouble our collective fight against this new phenomenon”.
Meanwhile, deaths are on the rise.
“We have reports of young people who have died of overdoses,” said Tinashe Chiweshe, an outreach worker with the Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drugs Network, which runs regular support sessions to help users quit using drugs.
Local dance artist and recovering drug addict Mega Jani is playing her part in the war on drug addiction, joining forces with her siblings under the auspices of a group called Mubatirapamwe, which means “to work together” in Shona.
“There’s a whole generation that’s been wiped out” by drugs, said Jani’s sister Savannah Madamombe, who visits drug hotspots with the musician to deter drug addiction.
The methamphetamine crisis has mainly affected the heavily populated and impoverished suburbs. By Jekesai NJIKIZANA (AFP) In Mbare, the oldest township in the capital, Diana Kaera takes part in the fight against abuse.
“We have a lot of talented young people in this neighborhood, but all of that talent is going to be wasted because of the guka abuse,” she said, using another slang term for crystal meth.
“Children as young as 14 and still in school take the drug.”
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