The Internal Security Minister of Kanya, John Michuki, today expressed concern that hard drugs were becoming more easily available to the youth of Kenya.
According to Michuki, the involevment of Kenya has gone from being almost exclusively a crossroad for drug traffickers to being the actual target destination for many of the drugs. This trend had lead to Kenya’s increase in drug-related crime according to the minister.
“The falling street price of cocaine is an indicator of the drug’s increased supply,” he said.
According to the World Drug Report, releaseb by thet UN Office on Drugs and Crime, cocaine seizures in Africa in tripled in 2004 with some areas of teh continent seeing as much as a six-fold increase.
The interesting part of this is the expansion of the drug market to include areas that were previously considere too poor to concern the interests of drug traffickers to supply them. This state of affairs appears to be changing somewhat.
The other issue that will be part of the increase in drug use is the comparative lack of security infrastructure in Africa as compared to the wealthy drug market countries of Europe and North America. If the cost of smuggling to a heavily secure country can be offset by dumping the drugs on a less secure country, then the option become attractive to drug traders.
Perhaps the successes of the war against drug trafficking in Europe then are having a negative impact on the situation in Africa.