By Allieu Sahid Tunkara-The Watchpen
A shocking image of a boiling pot of diapers that has gone viral in social media platforms has become an object of intense discussion in vehicles, workplaces, offices, mosques, churches, streets, ghettoes, ‘Ataya bases’ and many other places not named here.
Diapers called in the Sierra Leone parlance ‘pampass,’ according to experts, are made of absorbent chemicals that has the capacity to neutralize urine.It is also conceptualized as a folded piece of absorbent material that is placed between the baby’s legs and fastened at the waist to contain excretions. A medic has also claimed that sodium whose chemical formula is NA is one of the elements used in the manufacture of diapers.
It has been estimated that more than $96Bn is spent on disposable diapers each year as of 2018.
As the ‘Pampass’ discussions grow, accusing fingers are being pointed at drug addicts for boiling menstrual pads and drink the boiled liquid. Evidence indicates that, the liquid of menstrual pads is diluted with other alcohol for their consumption.
Social analysts have indicated a new form of drug addiction has emerged in Sierra Leone.
The intense discussion around diapers in the country revolves around its use by youths as a new narcotic or performance-enhancing drug. The new discovery has a close linkage between the drug culture to which youths have been exposed from time immemorial. Sierra Leone has been dubbed a landing place for traffickers of harmful drugs notably cocaine. The surreptitious landing of a foreign ‘cocaine plane’ at the main international Airport in 2008 testifies to the import and proliferation of harmful drugs in Sierra Leone. The authorities were alarmed by the cocaine plane landing and a new drug law known as the Anti-Drugs Act, 2008 was speedily passed with tough penalties. The Act replaced the Pharmacy and Drugs law which is lenient in terms of punishment.
The uncontrollable exposure of youths to the drug culture by youths have made them constantly search for new ones. The wild search for drugs has facilitated the emergence of cartels and skid rows, notorious haunts for drug-crazed youth. The ceaseless search have also led the youths to unveil a new drug that has taken medics aback.
A male youth in a bus bound for Jui and Grafton, east of Freetown apparently a drug addict told Nightwatch the liquid of a boiled ‘pampass’ resembles a ‘bizzap’ drink. “The drink is juicy and soothing. It also makes you think well,” he said. He also explained that all other drugs had been exhausted and the ‘pampass’ drug, he said, had come to last. Since the drug looks active and strong for us, we are thinking of ways to improve it,” he suggested.
As the ‘pampass’ drug menace spirals, a medic in Kambia said he was taken aback in respect of how the youths came to discover pampass as a drug. “From my medical knowledge, ‘pampass’ is good only for babies who wear them. I wonder how the youths come to acquire such knowledge about the use of pampass as a drug,” he imagined. The medical expert made the statement via Morning Coffee, the flagship program of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation. The medic confirms the presence of sodium, one of the first 20 elements, in diapers. The medic contends that if boiled, he said, a complex molecular structure had been created.
In his analysis, the medic drew a sharp nexus between drug and violence. “if Someone takes cocaine or brown brown, he becomes violent and sometimes talk too much,” the medical superintendent claimed. He predicts the influx of mental homes if the new drug is not controlled. “The psychiatrics must be ready to cope with the mental disorders that will follow from the use of the pampass drug,” he warned.
However, the women folk come from a different angle in the assessment of the ‘pampass’ drug. They look at it from the economic angle. The women are bitterly complaining that the price for ‘pampass’ has sharply shot up. A suckling mother, Rugiatu Conteh expressed her dissatisfaction with the rise in price. “I started buying pampass at the price of Le1,000. But, now the price has risen to Le2,000. It is really a difficult situation for us as we regularly use pampass on our children every day,” she explained. In the provinces, women, especially suckling mothers have been hit. It is a trying moment for them especially for those who have two or three babies to take care of. In Some rural communities, the price of diapers has gone up to Le 4,000. The sharp increase in price is the direct consequence of pampass drug abusers.
Government Failings Explored
The drug menace among the youths of Sierra Leone, is age-old. Successive governments have been grappling with the drug challenge for many years. But the country was known for two notorious- Cannabis and Cocaine but different types have today characterised the drug trade.
In the struggle against drugs proliferation, state institutions have been set up to crack down on traffickers and abusers. The most notable is the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency(NDLEA). It is an institution set up to detect, prevent and investigate incidents of drug trafficking and abuse in Sierra Leone. NDLEA works in close partnership with the Sierra Leone Police Trans National Organised Crime Unit(SLP/TOCU) in the fight against drugs. A senior official at NDLEA has confirmed that the institution has networked with civil society organisations to come to their aid in their public education campaign to keep the youths off drugs.
However, the campaigns on drugs, over the years, have proved less effective. NDLEA, the forefront institution in the fight against drugs buries its head in the sand and pretends that all is well in terms of the much needed finances to keep the institution up and running.
But, all is not well for NDLEA as the institution has been and is still resource-constrained. The agency is one of the least funded in terms of recruitment, training and remuneration personnel.It lacks sufficient mobility to conduct its drug operations in the country.
Since its formation, NDLEA has seen a genealogy of leaderships. One of its leaders, is a retired Colonel, Sim Turay who has also left the agency as he had clocked the age of retirement. In 2015, the retired colonel wrote a damning report that bothered on the neglect of the agency by the state. He referred to the agency as “abandoned agency.” “I cannot run a neglected agency like this,” the retired colonel said years back. The report though it yielded dividends in the short-run through the provision of some money to cushion the agency’s expenditure, it pitches tent with the government and the colonel retired to his trench.
The TOCU unit also seems helpless in the face of the growing threat of drugs proliferation in the country. The SLP drugs investigative unit is notorious for reactive policing at the expense of pro-active policing. The agency lacks police detective equipment to effectively combat the drugs trade owing to insufficient funding.It thus succumbs to a fate similar to NDLEA.
The emergence of the new drug,‘Pampass’ has also raised questions about the effectiveness and efficiency of the Office of National Security, Immigration Department, Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Youths, The Ministry of Education. The aforementioned state institutions have been lampooned for their negligence which has caused harmful drugs to flourish nationwide.
As questions continue to hunt the line ministries, communities of stakeholders wait for a reaction or the country turned into a cartel by a young generation of drug addicts.