NAIROBI, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's United Nations-backed National Alcohol and Drug Abuse Policy will be launched by the end of 2019, a government official said on Tuesday.
Victor Okioma, chief executive officer of state-owned National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse told Xinhua in Nairobi that the UN is providing technical support for the development of the policy.
"Once in place the policy will provide a guideline and roadmap for the interventions that are required to respond to the rising cases of drug and alcohol abuse," Okioma said on the sidelines of the launch of the Africa Journal of Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
He said that the UN is also supporting the east African nation's program on harm reduction for injecting drug users by providing methadone for heroin addicts.
He added that the most worrying trend is the rising cases of drug and alcohol abuse in tertiary institutions.
"Going forward this is where the key focus will be in order to combat the country's substance abuse problem," he said.
According to the government agency, the rising drug abuse crisis is driven primarily by the easy availability of drugs.
"We used to be a transit country, but Kenya has become a consumer of hard drugs," Okioma noted.
