Thu, 24 Nov 2016 11:32:40 +0000 Every single day in Zambia, an average of 15 people are arrested for drug offenses, mostly for cannabis. Some of these victims are as young as 11-years-old, and almost all of them are poor and powerless. The inhumane prison overcrowding we are witnessing is a symptom of the failed global War on Drugs. That war has been good for organizations like the Drug Enforcement Commission and the US Drug Enforcement Administration—which signed a “secret” MoU with DEC last year—but it has been devastating for the world’s poor and marginalized communities. In Zambia, the main victims of our overly harsh drug laws are also poor and vulnerable, among them untold thousands of peasant farmers, widows, and unemployed youths. Visit the juvenile section of Kamwala Remand Prison and you will find that almost all those young inmates have been caged by DEC, some of them still dressed in their school […]
