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"id": 113075,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/113075/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Imanyara",
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"speaker": {
"id": 22,
"legal_name": "Gitobu Imanyara",
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on any weekend on a Sunday afternoon, after the church service, if you go to any market centre in this country, you will see large numbers of unemployed youths walking aimlessly or just waiting for hire by MPs or other politicians or people with causes that need to be advanced. These people appear to be in truancy. They seem to walk like zombies because of the effect of alcohol and drug use. We cannot talk about achieving Vision 2030 unless we address this very serious social problem of alcoholism. The only area that I would urge the Mover of this Motion to reconsider is that in terms of the administration of the law, I would like the Ministry of Education to play a much more significant law by legislation. I will suggest to my good friend that when it comes to the Third Reading, we should also amend the Education Act to require that Alcohol and Drug Abuse is brought into school curriculum as an examinable subject so that our children are brought up knowing the dangers of alcoholism. It is important that this social problem be recognized at the earliest opportunity. Not to require schools to bring this to the attention of the pupils and the attendant dangers will not realize the noble objectives that the Mover of this Motion has brought to this House. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I am particularly impressed that you have finally seen it fit to do what the Ministry of Health has been doing over the years, putting warning signs on tobacco products. If we pass this law, we will require warning messages on all these alcoholic products. I noticed that excessive alcohol consumption is harmful to your health. It is not just harmful; it kills. I would like to urge that rather than have these warnings specifically in an Act, we should make provisions requiring manufacturers to have warning signs that have been passed by the relevant authorities that we can set up under the Act. These days of the use of Sheng as a language, language is changing so fast. We need to recognize that in order to reach these young people, sometimes you need to use the language that they understand. Rather than have the warning signs set out in the law, we just require that these products do have warning signs that are consistent with the times. The seconder of this Motion has tabled a report by NACADA and this report makes sober reading. Even though it relates to just one province, particularly Murangâa and Thika, the conclusions that it arrives at can be applied to any part of this country. You can apply it to Eastern Province, North Eastern or any part of this country. I would have imagined that if only NACADA had visited other parts of the country, they would have found that the conclusions they would have come to are national. If I may quote from the executive summary of that report which has been tabled, you will notice that it talks about the most common effects of alcohol and drug abuse in the region and you can infer to the country. At the individual level, these were impotence, infidelity, insanity, low libido and increased HIV/AIDS infections. There can be no question at all that the age bracket that is most affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in this country is that age bracket that this NACADA report is talking about. Unless we are serious about changing the lifestyles of our young people, unless we bring legislation such as is envisaged in this Bill, then as they say in this report, there will be family breakdowns and increased domestic violence in many parts of the country due to poverty. You will find that a mother, father and children are found in drinking dens without regard to the ancient styles of living where we separated the lifestyles of grown up children and their parents. At community level, incest, homosexuality, lesbianism and unwanted pregnancies were the major negative effects. They also said that the major social, economic and political effects of ADA were an upsurge of crime and insecurity, high school dropout rates, rise in school unrests and declining education standards. The majority of potential partners undertaking ADA initiatives in the province were not specific to ADA prevention. They go on to say that cases of underage alcohol and drug abuse were evident. Secondly, children are indecently exposed at entertainment venues by their own parents and guardians, proliferation of illegal gangs specifically"
}