REPORT

Clandestine Cannabis Farmers Across West Africa Feed Growing Drug Abuse

Farmers in West Africa are turning to cannabis as a quick cash crop, feeding the biggest illegal drug market in the world. UN Office on Drugs and Crime's (UNODC) director for West Africa, Antonio Mazzitelli, told IRIN clandestine farmers are lured by quick earnings: "Faced with the choice of cannabis or cassava, some choose easy money."

Of an estimated 42,000 metric tons of cannabis grown worldwide in 2006 - sold as marijuana or hashish - 25 percent was grown in Africa where it is the most common drug of abuse and cultivation, according to the most recent UN World Drug Report.

Liberia's Deputy Minister of Justice Joseph Jalloh told IRIN at a high-level drug conference in Cape Verde on 29 October that marijuana abuse spread during Liberia’s civil conflict from 1989 to 2003, and is now an increasingly popular cash crop: "Within three months, farmers see profits verses seven years for rubber, or three years with palm [ingredient for oil]."

Jalloh said farmers are turning to highly profitable cannabis farming, which relies on cheap labor and low set-up costs, to feed the high demand among youths for relatively inexpensive marijuana.

The street value of cannabis grown in West Africa annually is about US$600 million, according to the UN. Most of it stays in the region, with only a small amount sold to Europe, according to an October 2008 UN report that links increased drug trafficking in West Africa to growing drug abuse.

A director of Ghana's Narcotics Control Board, Micheal Addo, reported that agents destroyed 660kg of cannabis plants in September. The executive director of Gambia’s DEA reported one ton of cannabis was destroyed in 2007.

Facing Down Farmers

Starting in June 2008, Liberia's Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), with support from the UN police, reported burning more than 400,000 cannabis plants over four months in the central Liberian Bong county, 100km northeast of the capital Monrovia, and Nimba county, 150km from Monrovia near the Guinea border.

DEA reported seizing some 20,000kg of already-harvested marijuana in 2007. DEA's director, James B. Jaddah, said the raids would not have been possible without military backup: "We have known about these farms for some time, but you can't just storm them without weapons. We did not know the resistance we would face. Some of these are ex-fighters [from the civil war] who held on to their weapons [during disarmament programs]."

Jaddah said government regulations allow only a specially trained police unit to carry weapons, so drug agents must rely on the UN for protection. "We are able to arrest drug dealers. Not all dealers have weapons. But it is different with potentially violent farmers in remote areas. They are likely to protect their property with guns."

When asked how the government can prevent farmers from replanting cannabis after raids, the Ministry of Justice's Jalloh said the agency does not even know who the farmers are: "It's not like the farmers are waiting for us when we show up to burn their fields. They have workers on the farm, but the owners have fled or are based far from their farms. If we don't know who they are, the government cannot retrain them to take up other livelihoods."

Easy Money

Jalloh said cannabis farmers must be prosecuted. "These farmers could have planted things our country actually needs, like coffee, rice or pineapple.  We don't have enough food for our people and they go and plant marijuana because of greed. Rice takes work. It is not easy money. But at least it can feed people, rather than an underground economy."
Liberians are among the hungriest people in the world, according to the 2008 Global Hunger Index, a situation that has changed little since 1990.

During its first raid on marijuana farms, Liberia’s DEA destroyed about 438,000 plants based on hectares destroyed, the agency estimates.  The challenge is wiping cannabis out for good, said Deputy Justice Minister Jalloh. "We will send in people, both openly and undercover, to monitor the [burnt cannabis] fields. But the agency has only three cars, and about 70 men total. It will be difficult."

SOUTH AFRICA:

The South African government should aim for free universal education, backed up by teacher training so as to make a significant impact on the quality of schooling, said the country's largest public service union.

Jon Lewis, spokesman for the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU) said the plan by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to extend free education to 60 percent of schools in 2009 should be applauded, but it was not without glitches.

"The process of identifying and assessing poor schools which would benefit from the plan is quite problematic," Lewis said. Schools were often found to be either poorer or richer than the assessment process had classified them, and he recommended that the country "rather go for free universal education."

The ANC announced the decision to extend the "No Fee" school model from the poorest 40 percent to 60 percent of schools at its conference in Polokwane, Limpopo Province, in December 2007.

Lewis said the government should also concentrate its efforts on trying to improve the quality of education by capping the maximum number of students in a class at 30, because "We have anecdotal evidence that classrooms in rural schools often have 60 students."

According to government's most recent statistics, in 2006 there were more than 380,000 educators for more than 12 million learners, giving an average of around 32 learners per class.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to improving school education has been the introduction of two new curricula in 15 years. "Teachers had started to get familiar with the first curriculum, introduced 12 years ago, when yet another was introduced six years ago. At one stage schools were struggling with two curricula and things got very complicated," said Lewis.

Training teachers and familiarizing educators with the new curriculum and assessment process should be intensified. "Many of our teachers were trained 10 to 20 years ago and are not familiar with the new curriculum," said Lewis. Few workshops to help teachers with these areas had been held, and "Often the quality of training provided has been poor."

Downside To Free Education

There was also a downside to plans to provide free education, which could impact on a school's ability to raise financial resources. In many cases the income to be provided by the state to compensate for the loss of school-fee revenue would be lower, said Salim Vally, a senior education researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

"While taking away fees might make it easier for children to access, whether they will receive a meaningful education is questionable," he commented.

Auxiliary Support

Vally said auxiliary support in the form of free school books and uniforms should be part of extending free education. A significant number of South African children, many of whom have been orphaned by the HI-virus, received free school books, clothes and a daily meal because of the impoverished existence they endured at home.

"The call for free education has been made by civil society for years, and the ANC's decision to provide free education must be applauded. But this step must be supported, as fees are just a fraction of the cost of going to school," said Vally.

"The cost of transport, school feeding programs and administering education at local and provincial level is significant. While the money is there to pay for these programs, the capacity to deliver, thus far, has been lacking and there are no signs that this has changed dramatically in recent months."

Poorly Serviced Schools

Schools also struggle with poor service delivery and equipment. Nearly 15 years after the advent of democracy in South Africa, thousands of schools across the country still have no sanitation, water, electricity, science laboratories or sports facilities, despite the education department having an annual budget allocation larger than any other government department.

Education Minister Naledi Pandor recently told parliament that just over 26,000 government schools in South Africa lacked at least one of a number of basic infrastructural needs, such as running water and electricity.

Pandor, whose statistics were compiled from research conducted in 2007 by the National Education Infrastructure Management System, revealed that 1,097 schools had no sanitation facilities, 2,568 had no piped water and 7,418 were without science laboratories. A majority of the schools worst hit by poor service delivery were in the Eastern Cape Province, an ANC heartland.

The education minister maintained that a significant number of schools lacking in basic services were earmarked for infrastructural upgrades during the 2009 school year. She said the department of water affairs and forestry planned to supply sanitation to 935 of these schools and 900 would receive running water.