By Brenna Matendere
Nationwide drugs decriminalisation dialogues put together by the Civil Liberties and Drugs network roars into life this Saturday with Harare chapter program earmarked for Dzivarasekwa suburb while other parts of the country will also be having similar events.
Wilson Box, the CLDN director who has painstakingly pushed the agenda for over a decade confirmed the development.
“CLDN is having nationwide dialogues on drug decriminalization in order to sensitize Zimbabweans on the need to take issues of illicit drug use as a Public Health Issue rather than a criminal issue,” he said.
” A person who uses drugs is a victim of a vice and we need to take the person out of the vicious cycle of illicit drug use.
“Decriminalization will enable more people who use drugs to seek treatment .”
Box reiterated that what needs to be achieved through this initiative is to have drug laws of Zimbabwe reformed so that people who use drugs come out in the open and seek medical and mental health treatment.
“The case of a guy in Chegutu is a case in point. That guy should have been treated of mental health issues instead of the end result,” he said.
In Harare, the key stakeholders are the people of Dzivarasekwa who are coming to share their experiences with the challenges of drug use in the suburb.
Other organisations coming up to this dialogue include Students for Sensible Drug Policies and Women Health Issues Trust Zimbabwe.
” We also expect the ZRP Narcotics desk to attend the dialogue not forgetting people who use and inject drugs in their diversity.
” The dialogue will solicit ideas and novel ways of dealing with drug use using the humane approach rather than criminalisation which has clearly failed,” said Box adding:
“All our support groups are either drug users or former drug users hence ZCLDN. We work with drug users. The dialogue is open to everyone including the voices of the marginalized and hard to reach populations in our localities.
“In other words, we expect the marginalized populations to be given a platform to express themselves”.
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