The illicit drug control authorities in Tanzania have been pondering over imposing harsher punishment on drug dealers and drug barons to better curb the import and transit of heroin and cocaine.
Christopher Shekiondo, Tanzanian drug control commissioner, has proposed long imprisonment for drug dealers as a better way to fight drug trafficking that is steadily on the rise in the country.
Police statistics showed that the confiscation of imported heroin in Tanzania had increased from 7.3 kg in 2005 to 92 kg in 2006 and that of imported cocaine had rose from 160 grams in 2005 to 4,000 grams in 2006.
Police hauls of locally-produced drug khat have also increased from 1,206 kg in 2005 to 5,144 kg in 2006.
The country's director of criminal investigation, Robert Manumba, has disclosed that since the early 1990s East Africa had been slowly but steadily turning into a transit route for illicit drugs destined for Europe and North America.
The Vienna-based International Narcotic Control Board has warned that drug abuses had worsened in East Africa due to increased drug trafficking in the region and that West African drug dealers were drawn to the region to exchange heroin for cocaine that is in turn smuggled to South Asia.
Source: Xinhua
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