From heroin addict to ‘bhatik’ seller, meet Simwaza

IN her early 50s, Mariam Simwaza is a quinquagenarian who has been in drugs and mostly heroin for about 15 years. For your information, you may develop a substance use disorder if you use heroin (a crude preparation of diamorphine) regularly for 2-3 weeks.

This means your drug use causes health problems, disabilities, and trouble at home, work or school. After saying no to drugs in 2021 and joining Behaviour Change Centre, she decided to specialise in ‘bhatik’ kind of clothes production, simply to eke out a living and lead a decent life.

A resident of ‘Barabara ya 16’ area in Tanga Region, she narrated how she got entangled in the game through her peers and mostly her friend (name withheld) by mostly starting with alcohol and cigarette smoking.

In the scientific world, heroin, commonly called smack, is chemically diacetylmorphine which is a white, odourless, bitter crystalline compound.

This is obtained by acetylation of morphine, which is extracted from the latex of poppy plant Papaver somniferum.

In the smoking act, little did she know that the stuff was being served with other ingredients, which further intoxicated her. With time, she became addicted and to sustain herself in the game, she had to sell her household items and in the process she irked her husband.

The husband got tired and ran away with their only one daughter and left her in the hands of her fellow addicts.

“I soon became a street lady especially after my father came across that I was the addict,” she narrates during the just ended International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking commemorations in Mwanza region

With her friends she joined the ranks of local street gangsters that had to rob people in order to get extra money to survive. In the course,

In the course, Police caught her and she was jailed for three year and after release, she went back to her group that worshipped heroin taking every day to survive.

She added: When I was arrested, I was so weak and I could not even walk properly. To cut the story short, I thank the Tanga- based Gift of Hope Foundation that reached to me with an outreach programme of rescuing us.”

Funded by Tanzania Health Promotion Support (THPS) through a-five-year (2021-2026) ‘Afya Hatua’ project, they visit the addicts in the streets and bring them to the camps, where they connect them with Medically Assisted Therapy (MAT) department, at Tanga Regional Referral Hospital-Bombo.

The project is implemented by THPS in collaboration with the Tanzanian government, under the sponsorship of the U.S. President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.CDC).

She immediately joined the MAT services and adhered to Methadone- a medicine used to treat heroin addiction, to date. At the centre, they are provided with skills in behaviour change so that with time they say no to drugs.

According to the Foundation Administration Officer, Mr Abubakary Zuberi, they also need the support of other sponsors so that they continue to provide training to them.

At the centre, they are trained as tailors, bake bricks, make soaps and design ‘bhatik’ clothes as a means of selfemployment and survival.

He further said that other addicts should follow the footsteps of Semwaza by joining the camp and never miss prescription of drugs meant for them. “She is no longer a dependent.

Her adherence to methadone provides her with an opportunity to fully engage in various entrepreneurship activities,” he pointed out.

Elaborating, Mr Zuberi asked the government to strengthen the war against illegal drugs’ importations, including formalisation of all ‘clandestine’ ports in Tanga Region, where such drugs find their ways into the country.

Through the out-reach programmes, the Foundation connects not less than three addicts to Bombo for MAT every day and this shows how the problem is still big in the society.

Bombo Hospital Social Welfare Officer, Ms Betha Mbarouk, supported the motion that majority of the drug addicts are now voluntarily joining MAT service, with some admitting illegal drug shortage in their midst.

“We really praise the relevant drug control authority. Their work pushes addicts to resort to our behaviour change sessions and become good people,” she said.

On his part, MAT Manager at Bombo, Dr Wallace Karata admitted an increase in the number of addicts for methadone medication, with the hospital serving about 1,130 as of now. At-least 60 addicts came out of the centre between 2020 to May 2024, with some more expected at end of this year again.

The recovery takes atleast three years, but some do go far beyond because behaviour change doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a long process depending on how a person has been physiologically affected.

Dr Karata at the same time expressed gratitude to the government and stakeholders who make sure that Bombo never goes out of methadone stock that they are doing a great job to the society, especially given the fact that consumers are on the increase.

It was further noted that MAT services involve HIV testing, care and treatment because the addicts are at high risk of becoming infected with HIV in their relations, especially in their unprotected sex and sharing needles during injections to get drugs.

Again, those diagnosed with HIV are immediately served with virus suppressing drugs, while also on methadone.