Africa-Press – Uganda. Although marijuana remains outlawed in the country, the Soroti street kids who operate around the GBX Cinema complex have defied the rules by selling and smoking the drug in the open.
Of every 10 street children gathered around this famous place, five of them are either smoking marijuana or rolling it into small paper pipes for sale. They claim it’s from the sales of marijuana that they get what to eat.
Denis Okwii, one of the street kids operating around this complex told this reporter that each ‘stick’ of rolled marijuana sells at Shs1000.
“For the years I have been on the streets, marijuana has been like my mother and father. It’s after the day’s sale that I find what to eat, and when the night cold falls, we smoke it to keep warm,” he said.
Okwii said their supply comes from Karamoja and is distributed among the preferred street kids, who have to remit the money back after selling.
“Our customers range from casual labourers, hawkers, taxi operators, boda boda riders and others,” he explained.
Juma Musoke, a primary six dropout, said they have managed to thrive in this business for a long time because they are not hostile to city authorities, though they are sometimes framed as thieves.
“After the stock is sold, we have to remit the money to our suppliers in Karamoja, those who fail to do so will be out of business. On a bad day I can collect only Shs20,000,” he explained.
The East Kyoga Police Spokesperson, SP Oscar Ageca, said the issue of the street kids selling marijuana in Soroti town is a multi-layered one, adding that there is a big gap in the law when it comes to matters of distribution, possession and those cultivating it, which needs to be addressed.
“In situations where these people are arrested and arraigned in courts, they are released because of the gaps in the law. And the child remand facility in Mbale is constrained and overcrowded and we can’t take them to prisons because they are under-aged,” he said.
Ms Grace Tino, a resident in the central ward, says there is laxity among those meant to implement the law, “so those children of ours (street kids) have the leverage to sell their drugs at will.”
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