Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1984
Use of Drugs Among Senegalese School Going Adolescents L Walter D ' H o n d t 2 and Michel V a n d e w i e l e 3'4
Received September 1, 1983;accepted Ma), 16, 1984 Though it may appear more severe and dramatic in most industrialized nations, drug addiction has also become a matter f o r concern in some developing nations. The problem is even more complex when, prior to the advent o f colonialism and the adoption o f Western values by those countries, there ah'eady existed traditional forms o f drug addiction. This paper examines the attitudes o f Senegalese school-going adolescents to the problem o f drug addiction. It describes the nature, development, and perception o f drug addiction in the coun try from an historical and sociological point o f view. It shows the tolerance o f Senegalese society toward d r u g s - s o m e were used in traditional medicine- and its rejection o f "hard" and intermediate drugs, as they are viewed negatively by the society. The authors finally analyze the motivations o f the drug addicts which also indicate, in Africa as in the West, a crisis o f identity reflecting a global crisis o f civilization.
INTRODUCTION
During the Ninth Dakar Medical Symposium (January 15-20, 1979) on toxicomania in Africa and at the international colloquium on drug
We are profoundly grateful to the Belgian Cooperation Service for the material assistance they kindly provided us. 2Professor, Ecole Normale Sup6rieure, Universit6 de Dakar. Master's degree in Psychopedagogy and a postgraduate in Psychosociology. Research interest is cross-cultural adolescent psychology. 3Professor, Ecole Normale Sup6rieure, Universit6 de Dakar. Doctor of mathematics and postgraduate in psychopedagogical science. Research interest is cross-cultural adolescent psychology. ~Correspondence should be sent to Dr. M. Vandewiele, Strijdhoflaan, 76, 2600 Berchem, Belgium.
253 0047-2891/84/0600-0253503.50/0 © 1984 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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problems in francophone African countries (January 7-11, 1980) we have been twice struck by the serious lack of exploratory information about the attitudes of young Africans toward this crucial problem. As Soreif aptly noted at the last colloquium, "there has been a remarkable abundance o f studies since 1968 on the psycho-pharmacological and psycho-social aspects o f drug-taking but most o f them are made in developed countries." No educational strategy for the effective control, treatment, and prevention of this phenomenon can be worked out without minimal trustworthy information on the scope and nature of the nonmedical consumption of psychoactive drugs in Senegal.
METHOD
The above considerations led us to undertake a research study in 1980-81 aimed at investigating the attitudes o f male Senegalese adolescents to drug-taking. This study is part o f the overall study o f Senegalese schoolgoing adolescents. To this end, 486 school-going adolescents, 65°70 o f whom were aged 17-19, 30°70 were 20-22, and 5°70 were 23-25, were requested to answer a questionnaire either orally or in writing. 5 In 37°70 of cases, written anonymous questionnaire-interviews were handed round collectively in 4th, 5th, and 6th forms of various lyc6es throughout the country. Volunteers were requested to fill in the questionnaires during class hours. In all other cases, a dozen interviewers were sent to the urban centers in the country to administer the same questionnaireinterviews orally and individually to school-going volunteers outside school premises. There were as many interviews made in Dakar, the capital, as in the urban centers in the rest o f the country. Nearly I4070 of respondents were from wealthy families, 31070 from middle-class families, and 49070 from lowincome families. A first test indicated that few grils were willing to be interviewed orally and that those who were gave little or no information on the subject. We could not establish whether this behavior was due to ignorance, or to any taboo, or to a form o f refusal or shyness or indifference ("I'm not concerned"). In this connection Boroffka (1966) in Nigeria has noted that the consumption o f cannabis was almost entirely reserved for men, which does not seem to be always the case in East Africa, according to Du Toit (1975, p. 101). Consequently, we decided to consider only the boys' reactions both for collective written questionnaires and individual oral ones in order to SThe questionnaire (53 questions) will be sent to any interested reader.
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preserve the homogeneity o f data and eventual conclusions. Results showed few differences between the two types of questionnaires, thus contradicting the findings o f research carried out by Hanck and Dieng (1979) in a quarter of Dakar-Pikine; these authors had found the written questionnaire inefficient for that matter. On the other hand, we must also acknowledge the fact that the Senegalese interviewers who were specially trained for the job did not limit themselves to the questionnaire. In some cases they had to pretend they were drug addicts. They had to speak a mixed "lingo" composed of Wolof and "broken American" to gain access to the inner circles without causing suspicion. Then they had to reconstruct their interviews from memory.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Perception of Nature of Drugs By asking point blank "what is a drug in your opinion," we tried to evaluate the impact of the word "drug" on Senegalese adolescents. Eight adolescents out of ten gave a definition that underlines exclusively the noxious and negative effects of drugs. (Only 25% confessed ignorance o f what a drug was.) Emphasis was laid on the nonmedical aspect o f drug-taking. Drugs were said to provoke hallucinations, a word recurring in 16% o f answers and thus indicating that, to our mind, a good many school-going youth have rather good theoretical notions o f the problem, since the word "hallucination" does not belong to everyday language. One may wonder naturally whether all those who had used that term meant to describe the morbid sensations a n d / o r aimless perceptions inherent in hallucinations or whether they were rather referring to the mild sense of the word as strong amazement, or still whether they were confusing the two meanings of the word. Whatever the case, many described drugs simply as "a dangerous product" ( 1 4 % ) . . . that can turn a man mad (11%) and "can provoke a feeling of evasion" (10%). Significantly enough these comments are more frequent in individual interviews than in the collective ones. Drugs were also described as something that "makes a man lose control over his actions" (10%) or that may "ruin his mental faculties and lead him to his death" (8%). Drugs are said to turn a man wicked and cowardly and lead him to a life o f debauchery. For others, finally, drugs are products that are noxious to society as a whole. Nearly 20% of answers had a positive idea of what drugs are. They defined them as good stimulants that stimulate the body and cause pleasant sensations (11%). According to these youth, they enable one to work better
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(3%) and cure loneliness (1%) and trouble (1°70). Drugs are even believed to increase courage (I %) and efficiently fight shyness and all other kinds o f complexes (1070). When requested to go beyond a theoretical definition o f drugs and give some concrete examples, nearly 57°70 o f subjects immediately thought o f cannabis sativa, better know under the Wolof name yamba. 6 Other Senegalese adolescents used the terms baks, gamin, local, diaaga, taay chiit,
d6op, gandia, waldengud, verte, niakhmi, lop's, green, macoutt, boon, niaakoy, salsa, dafia, maas-maas, or kept to the North African name hashish, the Morocaan kif, or the North American marijuana. Most respondents confuse the various terms that describe the same t h i n g cannabis. This is evidenced in their reactions to a closed question presenting cannabis in its various appelations: widely diverging percentages were obtained according to whether hashish or yamba was referred to. They were even several who confessed ignorance o f the words hashish, marijuana~ and cannabis. The Senegalese are quite familiar with the toxic nature o f yamba as it grows spontaneously in organic soils round villages and even cities. The herb is grown secretly in the Cap-Vert region, in the Saloum islands, in lower Casamance, a n d m o s t l y along the Northern coast o f Dakar. Kerharo and Adams (1974) further note that cannabis, which was fashionable only in the lower social strata, has been rampant in the most sophisticated intellectual circles for a few years now. Yamba is generally smoked but some also drink it infused or mixed with alcoholic drinks or in decoctions. Very few drug addicts use the syringe. This may be due to the tradtiional belief that considers the bodily envelope of paramount importance as it houses the spirit in man: consequently, it should not be transgressed under any cicumstances. After cannabis, "coffee" and "very strong tea" were most frequently quoted by respondents as examples o f drugs (13%). These two products are widely used by large sections o f the Senegalese population; they are perfectly accepted by the society as stimulants that have no disparaging connotations. By greatly increasing the dosage of coffee and tea, many users believe they can obtain druglike effects without being reprimanded by people around them who temselves are great consumers of those products. Also insisted upon was the nervous tension caused by coffee and tea. Several respondents were of the opinion that such products can be considered as drugs only in exceptional cases of overintensive use. Their attitude can be summed up in this respondent sentence: "Excess in anything may be considered as a drug." However, in their therapeutic approach to the
6Yamba comes probably from the Brazilian word djamba.
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problem of toxicomania, Diop and Collomb (1974) hold that the use of the coffee and tea in Senegal is not a case o f toxicomania. "The effect of these druglike habits does not worry people as they are no indication o f mental health." However this is not true of the consumption of alcoholic beverages (mainly beer, wine, and palm-wine), a strict and severe taboo in a highly Islamized country. This rule nevertheless is often transgressed, as witness the heavy consumption of all kinds of alcohol which can hardly be attributed exclusively to the expatriate population and the few thousand nonMuslim Senegalese. In most cases, alcohol is consumed in secrecy, though more and more youth now drink openly 7 or regularly entertain their friends who do. This is also evidenced in the reactions to the question, 8 "Do you have friends who are taking drugs?" Over half the answers were affirmative and alcohol is quoted next to drugs. We agree with Hanck and Dieng (1979) that their growing use may give an idea of the decreasing respect paid by the youth to religious prohibitions. After yamba, coffee, tea, and alcohol, a series of other products follows, in order of frequency, quoted as examples of drugs but each scoring less than 6~0 of answers: Katti diantabe, pills, ether or gas vapor, and cigarettes. School-going adolescents call katti diantab6 (or kati dadab6 or koubadiara) most of the toxic herbs of the Datura Metel variety. It also grows around Dakar and on river banks; it is normally reserved in traditional medicine for external use (local massages o f edemas). However there are people, whom Kerharo and Adams (1974, p. 739) describe as exorcists, who use it internally. The truth is that Datura Metel addiction does exist, even though it is far less popular than yamba addiction; users fear its devastating effects. As Gras et al. (1980) note "we are now faced with an accelerating geographical and social expansion o f traditional forms of toxicomania together with the advent o f new ones." Where respondents mentioned "pills" as examples o f drugs (which they also called p i o n s (stuff) they mentioned mostly valium, aspirin, and even flavoquina pills. It is disquieting to see how easy it is, at times, to get nonprescribed medicine in Senegal through what Sylla et al. (1980) call parallel channels: "it is this anarchic consumption of medicine that has alarmed public health authorities." In most cases, medicine dealers are peddlers who have accomplices in hospitals and drugstores. They sell outdated medicine in small quantities. "There are in this country," as Seck et al.
7"Openly"in the sense that they drink alcohol within their peer group without being embarrassed. They seldom dare drink in the presence of parents. 8Noteworthyis the fact that non-drug-addictsdeclared having more friends who were taking drugs than drug addicts (780/0 vs. 57%, p < 0.05).
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(1980) further note, "people who are always ready to overuse medicine, especially psychotropic ones. The abuse o f such drugs is becoming more and more acute in Senegal." Other enquiries associate the word "drug" with ether and gas vapor inhaling. It is true that one may see at times children begging at gas stations for some gas in order to hide out, inhale the vapors, and get high. Benzine, which has psychotropic effects, is also a component of stain removers and diluents. Those products that some kids inhale and that are commonly called "gaintz" are apparently not unknown to adolescents. Data collected show that several respondents (2°7o) had friends who inhale gaintz. According to the enquiry carried out in Dakar-Pikine by Hanck and Dieng (1979), gaintz is after yamba and alcohol the most popular of the "new opiums for the Dakar youth." Gaintz is all the more dangerous as it is easily obtainable and its easy use makes it difficult to prohibit. Besides adolescents tend to believe that such products are harmless. Some respondents mentioned tobacco-smoking as a form of drug addiction. As we have already observed in a previous study (see D'Hondt and Vandewiele, 1983), some adolescents consider that smoking is a religious proscription and that any transgression to that rule earns the trespasser the stigma o f "drug addiction." Finally some youths consider cola nuts as drugs while others do not. Cola nuts, widely used as a masticatory in Africa, are a caffeine-based stimulant of the nervous system. Kerharo (1980) argues that "unquestionably there is abusive consumption and therefore toxicomania of the same kind as caffeine or amphetamine addiction." Frequency o f Drug Use
The abuse o f drugs keeps increasing in all its varied forms and there is no indication as yet that it might decrease. "In Senegal the use o f drugs is supposedly more and more frequent among school-going circles and therefore is no longer restricted to well-defined and well-organized milieus such as dockers, drivers, young loafers, tramps" (see Sylla et al., 1980). According to Diop et al. (1980) "Yamba addiction is no longer the prerogative of young idlers: secondary school students, university students, civil servants also indulge. However, as Kosviner (1976) observes, "inequality in the use of cannabis makes it difficult to evaluate its frequency in a given population all the more so as the anonymous nature of the questionnaire makes it arduous to control the validity of answers." In our sample of anonymous interviews, selected at random from among the various Iyc6es across the country, 59°7o of respondents said they
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had once had a personal experience with drugs. 9 We must underline here that we are dealing with volunteers/° which is already a guided selection. It is quite possible that those who refused to be interviewed would have given very different answers from the ones o f the former. Where respondents confess having taken drugs once, they meant cannabis in 70°7o o f cases and alcohol in 15°70, and for the remaining percentage, diluents, pills, and strong coffee more or less equally. Others also said they had used cola nuts and katti diantab6 as drugs. But it was mostly nondrug addicts that thought datura was a widely used herb. The percentage o f youths who assert having taken drugs once seems rather high c o m p a r e d to the findings o f other s t u d i e s , " especially as, in most cases, we are dealing here with a "classic" intermediate drug, yamba, halfway between hard drugs such as LSD or heroin '2 and soft drugs such as cola or coffee. But one has to be extremely careful in interpreting this fact: only 42070 of the 59070 who declared having taken drugs once were still taking drugs at the time the interviews were made, most of them having stopped doing so more than a year before. We can only suppose therefore that m a n y youngsters, "tempted by the devil," by curiosity, and by agegroup solidarity, wanted to try at least once just to know what drugs or their equivalents were all about. The main reason most had stopped taking drugs was that they estimated it was " b a d " (54070) and "had turned out to be uninteresting" (24070). Several (8070) also believed that drugs were diverting them from the genuine problems of life. Others (5070) had stopped because their parents had caught and punished them, or because they had been taken to court. According to nondrug addicts, addicts give up drugs when they realize that drugs are uninteresting (24070) or dangerous (24070) or when drugs make them sick (14070) or "turn some o f their friends m a d " (8070). Other reasons mentioned by non-drug-addicts were the addicts' desire to become "a good Muslim" or "a normal individual" again. To avoid a possible confusion between the attitudes of "real" drug addicts and those of "occasional" ones, we have considered that only 9For the whole sample (written-anonymous and oral-individual interviews) percentage reaches 61.3%. But this figure is biased and is not significant for the consumption rate because our interviewers were requested, for the oral interviews~to look for youths likely to take drugs who would be willing to talk privately. ~°The rate of abstention for collective-written investigations was 12%. 1Kosviner(1976) notes that 1007oof British schoolchildren assert having had a drug experience and only 3 to 6070with cannabis. ~2These hard drugs are in fact little known to the Senegalese youths, probably because their price is already relatively too high and their acquisition difficult.
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nonadults who declared they were addicts and claimed taking cannabis sativa on a regular basis (for a month at least) qualify as drug addicts. This brings the population of drug addicts to 75 persons, since we have even ruled out real drug addicts who used hallucinogens other than yamba. Motivations
The need to take drugs has complex motivations. A series of questions may help circumscribe them partly: "Why do you take drugs? .... Are there any specific feelings that make you take drugs? .... How did you come to take drugs?" Nearly 30% of the youths in our sample who take drugs do so out of curiosity. They had heard about the strange effects of drugs and wanted to know for themselves those secret and slightly "mystic" effects. Nearly a quarter of drug addicts said they were trying to unburden themselves, forget about their problems, and drown their daily troubles, while 17% took drugs for pleasure, for the "pleasant feeling" they procure. Over 10% did so "to be fashionable," to do like the others, and imitate one's friends. When in a group of smokers, respondents would not want to jeopardize group solidarity by staying out. If they wanted to project the image of someone modern, "disco," then they had to take drugs, a token of modernism and youthful energy. Drug addiction evidenced their courage to break through taboos and prohibitions and contributed to building the image of the Kaid that dares do anything. Some finally claimed they had taken drugs out of ignorance as they were little or not aware of all their effects. To the question whether there were any specific feelings that induced them to take drugs, one answer out of five was negative, but a similar proportion mentioned explicitly the search for pleasure. More than 10°70 admitted taking drugs to discard care and fatigue or to express their hatred for society and desire of violence. They wanted, to use their phrase, "to look like a warrior" (i.e, a tough guy). It is mostly when they are faced with the hostility and lack of understanding of their entourage that Senegalese school students take more drugs. Other adolescents, the playthings of all kinds of emotions, forget their love sorrows by taking drugs. When requested to describe how they came to take drugs, respondents mentioned curiosity first (46%0), while 38% attributed their first contacts with drugs to friends. These first contacts generally occurred by chance and were seldom an effect of snobbery. Nondrug addicts mention the same reasons for drug addiction but in different proportions. They consider, for example, that curiosity is a ridiculous justification, and insist rather on the daily cares besetting the youth (21°/0) or the pleasure of addiction (1507o). They also believe that
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adolescents take drugs "to cover up their complexes" (10°/0), to "feel free" (8%) and "escape to another world" (8%), to get more courage (8%), or be in high spirits. Just as drug addicts have declared, nondrug addicts also believe that adolescents take drugs to be fashionable, feel more clever and behave like warriors. Some even think drugs help forget school failure. The structure and type of motivations of drug addiction are quite similar to those of tobacco-smoking (see D'Hondt and Vandewiele, 1983), with the difference that adolescent smokers insisted more on habit, an argument that does not figure in the answers concerning drugs. Circumstantial Facts
In this section details are given of the atmosphere and circumstances that induce the youth to indulge in drugs. To the question "How did you come to take those drugs?" nearly half of them quoted curiosity again. Nearly 40°-/o admitted having been induced by their friends. Others indulged out of snobbery or because they had "plenty of money" at the time and wanted to try drugs. Some had started smoking yamba because they could feel nothing with other drugs. The nondrug addicts' opinion on this matter was quite different. They naturally agreed that curiosity and peer influence were enticements to drug addiction, but they also believe that unemployment, idleness, frustration, and disappointments in life contribute to the consumption of stimulants. They also believe that adolescents smoke yamba to overcome their shyness, or that drug addiction is simply due to a lack of education. With the question "Who induced you to drugs?" there emerges again the basic role played by the subject's entourage: friends and elders have tremendous power over the would-be addicts. Indeed only 25% of the respondents declared taking drugs alone. Usually groups of five to ten persons get together to take drugs and most of these groups are not related to the schools they attend. '3 The group leader is generally alien to the school environment but is normally older and a greater consumer than other group members though he does not dominate them. He is theoretically the one who gets the drugs or sometimes the richest or most daring in the group. The circumstances in which adolescents obtain drugs are differently perceived according to whether one is addressing nondrug addicts or drug addicts. In both cases half of the respondents agree that drugs are obtained from dealers, underground peddlers, but drug users asserted three times more often than nondrug-users that the drugs were almost always given to them by friends as "presents." They asserted that drugs could be bought at marketplaces, near movie houses and bars, or even in the streets. ~3Nondrug addicts believejust the opposite.
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The favorite places to take drugs were vacant lots or popular nightbars. At times adolescents would go in groups to a friend's place and smoke yamba there. Nearly 7°7o said they took drugs at school, while consumption at home hardly exceeds 10070 of the respondents, which indicates implicitly that it certainly is not accepted by the close family. The evenings and nights were the propitious times for drug-taking when darkeness conceals the intents and activities of drug users. For 19°70 of yamba smokers the money spent on drugs was over 5000 FCFA (= $14) per month. Another 20% of our sample declared spending between 2000 and 5000 FCFA per month, but the same proportion of nondrug addicts reckoned that their freinds who smoked wasted regularly over 10,000 FCFA per month on drugs. These sums seem very high for a schoolgoing population deprived of substantial financial resources. There are also specific occasions during which more drugs are bought, namely important holidays and dances. Several yamba users also said they smoked mostly while preparing their exams in order to get more lucid and be able to solve their school problems or to be less sensitive to the exhaustion caused by sustained concentration. Frequenting artists also offered special occasions for smoking cannabis. Some adolescents confessed they took drugs, because "reggae men" do so, following the example of Bob Marley, a reggae singer who is extremely popular in Africa. Indeed, the Jamaican reggae master has often preached in his songs that smoking weed was part and parcel of the liberation of the youth and of decolonization in general. In Jamaica prolber, Rastafarians are heavy smokers of marijuana which is to them a sacred herb that has a political and religious dimension. This drug is also considered harmless by the working classes of the country. In our sample the mean age at which users begin to take drugs is between 17 and 19 years, but 10°70 of respondents placed it before 14. Drug users and nondrug-users agreed on age distribution regarding drug addiction. Perception of the Effects of Drugs
Respondents were requested to specify the consequences of drug addiction along two opposite lines: beneficial effects and noxious effects of drugs. Only 5°70 of subjects believed that drugs had no beneficial effect, and exactly the same proportion held they had no noxious effects! This shows how mitigated their judgment is regarding the good or bad effects of drugs. Over half of the drug-users find that yamba makes one feel fine, gives one a feeling of ease, confidence, and performance. It procures, so they said, happiness, strength, and unlimited vigor. Several also underlined its therapeutic effects on certain diseases. Some found that cannabis gave them
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a feeling of superiority over others and a taste o f freedom so they "can better exteriorize themselves." Regarding the noxious effects, m a n y drug addicts believe that cannabis could ruin their health (35070), attack their nervous system, and even turn them mad (31 °7o). Some went even further by mentioning the risk o f death involved. Many (14°'/0) also insisted on the risk of total rejection o f addicts by their entourage. A final argument was that drugs could "slow down the national development o f the country." C o m p a r e d to drug addicts, nondrug-users interviewed insisted much more upon the noxious effects of drugs and systematically marginalize drug users. Nondrug-users not only quoted all the arguments against drug addiction quoted above by drug addicts, but they also added that y a m b a often induced to violence and destruction. They also said that it made the user nervous, gave him frequent fits of insomnia and headaches, intoxicated him, and urged him "to do anything." On the other hand, some 12070 o f nondrug-users were convinced that drugs made the user happy and increased his self-confidence. I f several Senegalese consumers o f y a m b a underline its positive aspects and refuse to be marginal in their own society, it is, according to us, because the use of this herb in traditional medicine is frequent in Senegal and dates back to remote times, a' No doubt it is also due to the fact that its use is partly accepted by the traditional culture o f the country. The use of cannabis sativa always has to be contextualized in the sociocultural system which determines its nature and acceptance in a given society. It remains true however that the majority of our respondents underlined the noxious effects of drugs. Most people agree to curb drug addiction with severe repressive measures, since, to use Giono-Barber's words (1980), "cannabis is a debilitating drug that causes anti-social behaviors including acts o f violence . . . . Some even claim that it is responsible for the decline of civilization." In the following section, it appears clearly that the entourage o f the drug addicts is generally against the consumption o f drugs. The Reactions of the Entourage The risk of becoming an addict is always greater for a subject who is maladjusted to his environment or lives in an unfavorable one in which he
14According to Du Toits' (1975) historico-ethnographic description of the growth of cannabis sativa in Africa, the plant was introduced in West Africa only in the second world war. Thi~ assertion seems inaccurate to us since yamba is known to Senegalese people whose memories go far beyond that date.
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can easily get those substances that cause toxicomania. But does the drug addict feel maladjusted? How does he perceive the reactions of his entourage toward him? To document this we have recorded his perception of his parent's, teacher's, and friend's reactions, three groups that have a strong and continuous influence on his behavior. Drug users asserted in their vast majority that neither parents, nor the family, nor teachers knew about their dependence on drugs, while their friends did know perfectly well. In fact, adolescents' peers usually enjoy a great measure o f confidence in matters that are not accepted by society at large (and perhaps precisely because o f such matters). Parental reaction is perceived as the most violent, as it is likened to a malediction. The drug addict is cursed and despised by his direct entourage and is a shame on the whole family. The drug addict wavers between the feeling that he is abandoned by his kith and kin and the impression that they are trying to redress and advise him. He therefore receives severe blame from his family. Regarding teachers, drug addicts declared they generally did not know, but when they did, they were extremely scornful, blamed them, or stayed simply indifferent. Concerning their friends' reaction, drug users felt it was either indifference or approval. But several friends would also feel disdainful and forsake their friends who take drugs. When nondrug addicts were asked their opinion about drug addicts who took hard drugs, most o f them called them "mad or abnormal" (17070) or "unconscious" (17°/0). Several concluded their comments with this threat: "If they dont't stop, they are lost for society" (16°70). They are convinced that "these ignorants" would die young or would have at least a dark and miserable future, since several respondents thought "they ran the risk of catching a cancer." Others accused them of hampering national recovery and considered them noxious to the Senegalese society. As to the question "what to do with drug-addicts?," opinion is very divided between these two attitudes: "drug addicts must be recuperated since they are not entirely responsible for what they are doing," and "they must be eliminated."
CONCLUSION It is obvious that the circulation and use of drugs is very ancient in the Senegalese traditional society, as testifies the use of Indian hemp (or yamba) as a medicinal or hallucinogen plant and also the current consumption o f cola nuts and palm-wine. But the meaning o f the word drug has to be specified for Senegalese people, and more particularly school-going ones, to
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differentiate between the so-called soft drugs and the intermediate and hard drugs. In fact, soft drugs such as cigarettes, cola nuts, coffee, and tea, though widely used, are seldom perceived negatively by respondents. Things are quite different when it comes to hard and intermediate drugs. Their perception is changing even now because of the progressive and profound Islamization fo the country on the one hand, and on the other hand because of the gradual adoption of the values of the Western world. While maintaining itself in the social categories which "traditionally" take drugs (petty trades, "dirty" or "tough" people, such as mechanics, dockers, drivers), the use of drugs has also reached school-going milieus. It is mostly out of curiosity that school-going adolescents are first tempted but the shortcomings of the Senegalese society, which is now undergoing a serious economic, social, and moral crisis, also play an important part. School-going adolescents are frustrated by the underdevelopment of their country, and are literally obsessed by the ever-increasing rates of failure at school. As a consequence, they are increasingly fascinated by all the forms of rebellion or emancipation that their counterparts adopt in other parts of the world. They are also becoming increasingly aware that drugs exist and that they can help "forget the world, if you can't change it." However these intermediate and hard drugs are perceived negatively by the Senegalese society because of three factors mainly: first, religion condemns the use of drugs; second, drugs are often associated with the idea of madness or death. Finally, drugs are closely associated with delinquency and crime. In fact, if the use of drugs is so vehemently stigmatized in the Senegalese society it is because it threatens directly the norms and foundations of that society.
REFERENCES
Boroffka, A. (1966). Mental illness and Indian hemp in Lagos. East Afr. Med. 43: 377-384. D'Hondt, W., and Vandewiele, M. (1983). Attitudes of Senegalese schoolgoing adolescents towards tobacco-smoking. J. Youth Adoles. 12: 333-353. Diop, B., and Collomb, H. (1974). Le chanvre indien au S6n6gal. Etude psychosociologique. Med. Afr. Noire 21: 225-358. Diop, B., Ahyi, R., Tripet, L., and Seck, A. (1980). Approche th6rapeutique de la toxicomanie: Experience s6n6galaise. Med. Afr. Noire 27: 213-218. Du Toit, B. (1975). Dagga: The history and ethnographic setting of"cannabis sativa" in Southern Africa. In Rubin, E. (ed.), Cannabis and Culture, Mouton, The Hague. Giono-Barber, H. (1980). Probl~mespos6s par I'usagedu cannabis. Mdd. Afr. Noire27: 197-213. Gras, G., Fares, T., and Giono-Barber, H. (1980). Toxicomanie au Datura metel; d~pistage rapide de la drogue. M~d. Afr. Noire 27: 233-236. Hanck, C., and Dieng, I. (1979). Nouveaux opiums pour la jeunesse Dakaroise. Environment Afr. 5: 13-18. Kerharo, J., and Adams, J. (1974). La Pharmacopde S~ndgalaise Traditionnelle, Vigot Fr~res, Paris.
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Kerharo, J. (1980). Drogues africaines et toxicomanies. Mdd. Aft. Noire 27: 187-196. Kosviner, A. (1976). Social science and cannabis use. In Graham, J. (ed.), Cannabis andHealth, Academic Press, London. Seck, A., Jouffe, G., Gueye, M., Sylla, O., and Adotevi, F. (1980). L'abus des m6dicaments psychotropes. Mdd. Afrique Noire 27: 253-257. Sytla, O., Sevreux, U., and Cisse, A. (1980). Sur les multiples formes du dopage dans diff6rents milieux soeiaux. Med. Afr. Noire 27: 213-218.
Use of Drugs Among Senegalese School Going Adolescents L Walter D ' H o n d t 2 and Michel V a n d e w i e l e 3'4
Received September 1, 1983;accepted Ma), 16, 1984 Though it may appear more severe and dramatic in most industrialized nations, drug addiction has also become a matter f o r concern in some developing nations. The problem is even more complex when, prior to the advent o f colonialism and the adoption o f Western values by those countries, there ah'eady existed traditional forms o f drug addiction. This paper examines the attitudes o f Senegalese school-going adolescents to the problem o f drug addiction. It describes the nature, development, and perception o f drug addiction in the coun try from an historical and sociological point o f view. It shows the tolerance o f Senegalese society toward d r u g s - s o m e were used in traditional medicine- and its rejection o f "hard" and intermediate drugs, as they are viewed negatively by the society. The authors finally analyze the motivations o f the drug addicts which also indicate, in Africa as in the West, a crisis o f identity reflecting a global crisis o f civilization.
INTRODUCTION
During the Ninth Dakar Medical Symposium (January 15-20, 1979) on toxicomania in Africa and at the international colloquium on drug
We are profoundly grateful to the Belgian Cooperation Service for the material assistance they kindly provided us. 2Professor, Ecole Normale Sup6rieure, Universit6 de Dakar. Master's degree in Psychopedagogy and a postgraduate in Psychosociology. Research interest is cross-cultural adolescent psychology. 3Professor, Ecole Normale Sup6rieure, Universit6 de Dakar. Doctor of mathematics and postgraduate in psychopedagogical science. Research interest is cross-cultural adolescent psychology. ~Correspondence should be sent to Dr. M. Vandewiele, Strijdhoflaan, 76, 2600 Berchem, Belgium.
253 0047-2891/84/0600-0253503.50/0 © 1984 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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problems in francophone African countries (January 7-11, 1980) we have been twice struck by the serious lack of exploratory information about the attitudes of young Africans toward this crucial problem. As Soreif aptly noted at the last colloquium, "there has been a remarkable abundance o f studies since 1968 on the psycho-pharmacological and psycho-social aspects o f drug-taking but most o f them are made in developed countries." No educational strategy for the effective control, treatment, and prevention of this phenomenon can be worked out without minimal trustworthy information on the scope and nature of the nonmedical consumption of psychoactive drugs in Senegal.
METHOD
The above considerations led us to undertake a research study in 1980-81 aimed at investigating the attitudes o f male Senegalese adolescents to drug-taking. This study is part o f the overall study o f Senegalese schoolgoing adolescents. To this end, 486 school-going adolescents, 65°70 o f whom were aged 17-19, 30°70 were 20-22, and 5°70 were 23-25, were requested to answer a questionnaire either orally or in writing. 5 In 37°70 of cases, written anonymous questionnaire-interviews were handed round collectively in 4th, 5th, and 6th forms of various lyc6es throughout the country. Volunteers were requested to fill in the questionnaires during class hours. In all other cases, a dozen interviewers were sent to the urban centers in the country to administer the same questionnaireinterviews orally and individually to school-going volunteers outside school premises. There were as many interviews made in Dakar, the capital, as in the urban centers in the rest o f the country. Nearly I4070 of respondents were from wealthy families, 31070 from middle-class families, and 49070 from lowincome families. A first test indicated that few grils were willing to be interviewed orally and that those who were gave little or no information on the subject. We could not establish whether this behavior was due to ignorance, or to any taboo, or to a form o f refusal or shyness or indifference ("I'm not concerned"). In this connection Boroffka (1966) in Nigeria has noted that the consumption o f cannabis was almost entirely reserved for men, which does not seem to be always the case in East Africa, according to Du Toit (1975, p. 101). Consequently, we decided to consider only the boys' reactions both for collective written questionnaires and individual oral ones in order to SThe questionnaire (53 questions) will be sent to any interested reader.
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preserve the homogeneity o f data and eventual conclusions. Results showed few differences between the two types of questionnaires, thus contradicting the findings o f research carried out by Hanck and Dieng (1979) in a quarter of Dakar-Pikine; these authors had found the written questionnaire inefficient for that matter. On the other hand, we must also acknowledge the fact that the Senegalese interviewers who were specially trained for the job did not limit themselves to the questionnaire. In some cases they had to pretend they were drug addicts. They had to speak a mixed "lingo" composed of Wolof and "broken American" to gain access to the inner circles without causing suspicion. Then they had to reconstruct their interviews from memory.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Perception of Nature of Drugs By asking point blank "what is a drug in your opinion," we tried to evaluate the impact of the word "drug" on Senegalese adolescents. Eight adolescents out of ten gave a definition that underlines exclusively the noxious and negative effects of drugs. (Only 25% confessed ignorance o f what a drug was.) Emphasis was laid on the nonmedical aspect o f drug-taking. Drugs were said to provoke hallucinations, a word recurring in 16% o f answers and thus indicating that, to our mind, a good many school-going youth have rather good theoretical notions o f the problem, since the word "hallucination" does not belong to everyday language. One may wonder naturally whether all those who had used that term meant to describe the morbid sensations a n d / o r aimless perceptions inherent in hallucinations or whether they were rather referring to the mild sense of the word as strong amazement, or still whether they were confusing the two meanings of the word. Whatever the case, many described drugs simply as "a dangerous product" ( 1 4 % ) . . . that can turn a man mad (11%) and "can provoke a feeling of evasion" (10%). Significantly enough these comments are more frequent in individual interviews than in the collective ones. Drugs were also described as something that "makes a man lose control over his actions" (10%) or that may "ruin his mental faculties and lead him to his death" (8%). Drugs are said to turn a man wicked and cowardly and lead him to a life o f debauchery. For others, finally, drugs are products that are noxious to society as a whole. Nearly 20% of answers had a positive idea of what drugs are. They defined them as good stimulants that stimulate the body and cause pleasant sensations (11%). According to these youth, they enable one to work better
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(3%) and cure loneliness (1%) and trouble (1°70). Drugs are even believed to increase courage (I %) and efficiently fight shyness and all other kinds o f complexes (1070). When requested to go beyond a theoretical definition o f drugs and give some concrete examples, nearly 57°70 o f subjects immediately thought o f cannabis sativa, better know under the Wolof name yamba. 6 Other Senegalese adolescents used the terms baks, gamin, local, diaaga, taay chiit,
d6op, gandia, waldengud, verte, niakhmi, lop's, green, macoutt, boon, niaakoy, salsa, dafia, maas-maas, or kept to the North African name hashish, the Morocaan kif, or the North American marijuana. Most respondents confuse the various terms that describe the same t h i n g cannabis. This is evidenced in their reactions to a closed question presenting cannabis in its various appelations: widely diverging percentages were obtained according to whether hashish or yamba was referred to. They were even several who confessed ignorance o f the words hashish, marijuana~ and cannabis. The Senegalese are quite familiar with the toxic nature o f yamba as it grows spontaneously in organic soils round villages and even cities. The herb is grown secretly in the Cap-Vert region, in the Saloum islands, in lower Casamance, a n d m o s t l y along the Northern coast o f Dakar. Kerharo and Adams (1974) further note that cannabis, which was fashionable only in the lower social strata, has been rampant in the most sophisticated intellectual circles for a few years now. Yamba is generally smoked but some also drink it infused or mixed with alcoholic drinks or in decoctions. Very few drug addicts use the syringe. This may be due to the tradtiional belief that considers the bodily envelope of paramount importance as it houses the spirit in man: consequently, it should not be transgressed under any cicumstances. After cannabis, "coffee" and "very strong tea" were most frequently quoted by respondents as examples o f drugs (13%). These two products are widely used by large sections o f the Senegalese population; they are perfectly accepted by the society as stimulants that have no disparaging connotations. By greatly increasing the dosage of coffee and tea, many users believe they can obtain druglike effects without being reprimanded by people around them who temselves are great consumers of those products. Also insisted upon was the nervous tension caused by coffee and tea. Several respondents were of the opinion that such products can be considered as drugs only in exceptional cases of overintensive use. Their attitude can be summed up in this respondent sentence: "Excess in anything may be considered as a drug." However, in their therapeutic approach to the
6Yamba comes probably from the Brazilian word djamba.
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problem of toxicomania, Diop and Collomb (1974) hold that the use of the coffee and tea in Senegal is not a case o f toxicomania. "The effect of these druglike habits does not worry people as they are no indication o f mental health." However this is not true of the consumption of alcoholic beverages (mainly beer, wine, and palm-wine), a strict and severe taboo in a highly Islamized country. This rule nevertheless is often transgressed, as witness the heavy consumption of all kinds of alcohol which can hardly be attributed exclusively to the expatriate population and the few thousand nonMuslim Senegalese. In most cases, alcohol is consumed in secrecy, though more and more youth now drink openly 7 or regularly entertain their friends who do. This is also evidenced in the reactions to the question, 8 "Do you have friends who are taking drugs?" Over half the answers were affirmative and alcohol is quoted next to drugs. We agree with Hanck and Dieng (1979) that their growing use may give an idea of the decreasing respect paid by the youth to religious prohibitions. After yamba, coffee, tea, and alcohol, a series of other products follows, in order of frequency, quoted as examples of drugs but each scoring less than 6~0 of answers: Katti diantabe, pills, ether or gas vapor, and cigarettes. School-going adolescents call katti diantab6 (or kati dadab6 or koubadiara) most of the toxic herbs of the Datura Metel variety. It also grows around Dakar and on river banks; it is normally reserved in traditional medicine for external use (local massages o f edemas). However there are people, whom Kerharo and Adams (1974, p. 739) describe as exorcists, who use it internally. The truth is that Datura Metel addiction does exist, even though it is far less popular than yamba addiction; users fear its devastating effects. As Gras et al. (1980) note "we are now faced with an accelerating geographical and social expansion o f traditional forms of toxicomania together with the advent o f new ones." Where respondents mentioned "pills" as examples o f drugs (which they also called p i o n s (stuff) they mentioned mostly valium, aspirin, and even flavoquina pills. It is disquieting to see how easy it is, at times, to get nonprescribed medicine in Senegal through what Sylla et al. (1980) call parallel channels: "it is this anarchic consumption of medicine that has alarmed public health authorities." In most cases, medicine dealers are peddlers who have accomplices in hospitals and drugstores. They sell outdated medicine in small quantities. "There are in this country," as Seck et al.
7"Openly"in the sense that they drink alcohol within their peer group without being embarrassed. They seldom dare drink in the presence of parents. 8Noteworthyis the fact that non-drug-addictsdeclared having more friends who were taking drugs than drug addicts (780/0 vs. 57%, p < 0.05).
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(1980) further note, "people who are always ready to overuse medicine, especially psychotropic ones. The abuse o f such drugs is becoming more and more acute in Senegal." Other enquiries associate the word "drug" with ether and gas vapor inhaling. It is true that one may see at times children begging at gas stations for some gas in order to hide out, inhale the vapors, and get high. Benzine, which has psychotropic effects, is also a component of stain removers and diluents. Those products that some kids inhale and that are commonly called "gaintz" are apparently not unknown to adolescents. Data collected show that several respondents (2°7o) had friends who inhale gaintz. According to the enquiry carried out in Dakar-Pikine by Hanck and Dieng (1979), gaintz is after yamba and alcohol the most popular of the "new opiums for the Dakar youth." Gaintz is all the more dangerous as it is easily obtainable and its easy use makes it difficult to prohibit. Besides adolescents tend to believe that such products are harmless. Some respondents mentioned tobacco-smoking as a form of drug addiction. As we have already observed in a previous study (see D'Hondt and Vandewiele, 1983), some adolescents consider that smoking is a religious proscription and that any transgression to that rule earns the trespasser the stigma o f "drug addiction." Finally some youths consider cola nuts as drugs while others do not. Cola nuts, widely used as a masticatory in Africa, are a caffeine-based stimulant of the nervous system. Kerharo (1980) argues that "unquestionably there is abusive consumption and therefore toxicomania of the same kind as caffeine or amphetamine addiction." Frequency o f Drug Use
The abuse o f drugs keeps increasing in all its varied forms and there is no indication as yet that it might decrease. "In Senegal the use o f drugs is supposedly more and more frequent among school-going circles and therefore is no longer restricted to well-defined and well-organized milieus such as dockers, drivers, young loafers, tramps" (see Sylla et al., 1980). According to Diop et al. (1980) "Yamba addiction is no longer the prerogative of young idlers: secondary school students, university students, civil servants also indulge. However, as Kosviner (1976) observes, "inequality in the use of cannabis makes it difficult to evaluate its frequency in a given population all the more so as the anonymous nature of the questionnaire makes it arduous to control the validity of answers." In our sample of anonymous interviews, selected at random from among the various Iyc6es across the country, 59°7o of respondents said they
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had once had a personal experience with drugs. 9 We must underline here that we are dealing with volunteers/° which is already a guided selection. It is quite possible that those who refused to be interviewed would have given very different answers from the ones o f the former. Where respondents confess having taken drugs once, they meant cannabis in 70°7o o f cases and alcohol in 15°70, and for the remaining percentage, diluents, pills, and strong coffee more or less equally. Others also said they had used cola nuts and katti diantab6 as drugs. But it was mostly nondrug addicts that thought datura was a widely used herb. The percentage o f youths who assert having taken drugs once seems rather high c o m p a r e d to the findings o f other s t u d i e s , " especially as, in most cases, we are dealing here with a "classic" intermediate drug, yamba, halfway between hard drugs such as LSD or heroin '2 and soft drugs such as cola or coffee. But one has to be extremely careful in interpreting this fact: only 42070 of the 59070 who declared having taken drugs once were still taking drugs at the time the interviews were made, most of them having stopped doing so more than a year before. We can only suppose therefore that m a n y youngsters, "tempted by the devil," by curiosity, and by agegroup solidarity, wanted to try at least once just to know what drugs or their equivalents were all about. The main reason most had stopped taking drugs was that they estimated it was " b a d " (54070) and "had turned out to be uninteresting" (24070). Several (8070) also believed that drugs were diverting them from the genuine problems of life. Others (5070) had stopped because their parents had caught and punished them, or because they had been taken to court. According to nondrug addicts, addicts give up drugs when they realize that drugs are uninteresting (24070) or dangerous (24070) or when drugs make them sick (14070) or "turn some o f their friends m a d " (8070). Other reasons mentioned by non-drug-addicts were the addicts' desire to become "a good Muslim" or "a normal individual" again. To avoid a possible confusion between the attitudes of "real" drug addicts and those of "occasional" ones, we have considered that only 9For the whole sample (written-anonymous and oral-individual interviews) percentage reaches 61.3%. But this figure is biased and is not significant for the consumption rate because our interviewers were requested, for the oral interviews~to look for youths likely to take drugs who would be willing to talk privately. ~°The rate of abstention for collective-written investigations was 12%. 1Kosviner(1976) notes that 1007oof British schoolchildren assert having had a drug experience and only 3 to 6070with cannabis. ~2These hard drugs are in fact little known to the Senegalese youths, probably because their price is already relatively too high and their acquisition difficult.
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nonadults who declared they were addicts and claimed taking cannabis sativa on a regular basis (for a month at least) qualify as drug addicts. This brings the population of drug addicts to 75 persons, since we have even ruled out real drug addicts who used hallucinogens other than yamba. Motivations
The need to take drugs has complex motivations. A series of questions may help circumscribe them partly: "Why do you take drugs? .... Are there any specific feelings that make you take drugs? .... How did you come to take drugs?" Nearly 30% of the youths in our sample who take drugs do so out of curiosity. They had heard about the strange effects of drugs and wanted to know for themselves those secret and slightly "mystic" effects. Nearly a quarter of drug addicts said they were trying to unburden themselves, forget about their problems, and drown their daily troubles, while 17% took drugs for pleasure, for the "pleasant feeling" they procure. Over 10% did so "to be fashionable," to do like the others, and imitate one's friends. When in a group of smokers, respondents would not want to jeopardize group solidarity by staying out. If they wanted to project the image of someone modern, "disco," then they had to take drugs, a token of modernism and youthful energy. Drug addiction evidenced their courage to break through taboos and prohibitions and contributed to building the image of the Kaid that dares do anything. Some finally claimed they had taken drugs out of ignorance as they were little or not aware of all their effects. To the question whether there were any specific feelings that induced them to take drugs, one answer out of five was negative, but a similar proportion mentioned explicitly the search for pleasure. More than 10°70 admitted taking drugs to discard care and fatigue or to express their hatred for society and desire of violence. They wanted, to use their phrase, "to look like a warrior" (i.e, a tough guy). It is mostly when they are faced with the hostility and lack of understanding of their entourage that Senegalese school students take more drugs. Other adolescents, the playthings of all kinds of emotions, forget their love sorrows by taking drugs. When requested to describe how they came to take drugs, respondents mentioned curiosity first (46%0), while 38% attributed their first contacts with drugs to friends. These first contacts generally occurred by chance and were seldom an effect of snobbery. Nondrug addicts mention the same reasons for drug addiction but in different proportions. They consider, for example, that curiosity is a ridiculous justification, and insist rather on the daily cares besetting the youth (21°/0) or the pleasure of addiction (1507o). They also believe that
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adolescents take drugs "to cover up their complexes" (10°/0), to "feel free" (8%) and "escape to another world" (8%), to get more courage (8%), or be in high spirits. Just as drug addicts have declared, nondrug addicts also believe that adolescents take drugs to be fashionable, feel more clever and behave like warriors. Some even think drugs help forget school failure. The structure and type of motivations of drug addiction are quite similar to those of tobacco-smoking (see D'Hondt and Vandewiele, 1983), with the difference that adolescent smokers insisted more on habit, an argument that does not figure in the answers concerning drugs. Circumstantial Facts
In this section details are given of the atmosphere and circumstances that induce the youth to indulge in drugs. To the question "How did you come to take those drugs?" nearly half of them quoted curiosity again. Nearly 40°-/o admitted having been induced by their friends. Others indulged out of snobbery or because they had "plenty of money" at the time and wanted to try drugs. Some had started smoking yamba because they could feel nothing with other drugs. The nondrug addicts' opinion on this matter was quite different. They naturally agreed that curiosity and peer influence were enticements to drug addiction, but they also believe that unemployment, idleness, frustration, and disappointments in life contribute to the consumption of stimulants. They also believe that adolescents smoke yamba to overcome their shyness, or that drug addiction is simply due to a lack of education. With the question "Who induced you to drugs?" there emerges again the basic role played by the subject's entourage: friends and elders have tremendous power over the would-be addicts. Indeed only 25% of the respondents declared taking drugs alone. Usually groups of five to ten persons get together to take drugs and most of these groups are not related to the schools they attend. '3 The group leader is generally alien to the school environment but is normally older and a greater consumer than other group members though he does not dominate them. He is theoretically the one who gets the drugs or sometimes the richest or most daring in the group. The circumstances in which adolescents obtain drugs are differently perceived according to whether one is addressing nondrug addicts or drug addicts. In both cases half of the respondents agree that drugs are obtained from dealers, underground peddlers, but drug users asserted three times more often than nondrug-users that the drugs were almost always given to them by friends as "presents." They asserted that drugs could be bought at marketplaces, near movie houses and bars, or even in the streets. ~3Nondrug addicts believejust the opposite.
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The favorite places to take drugs were vacant lots or popular nightbars. At times adolescents would go in groups to a friend's place and smoke yamba there. Nearly 7°7o said they took drugs at school, while consumption at home hardly exceeds 10070 of the respondents, which indicates implicitly that it certainly is not accepted by the close family. The evenings and nights were the propitious times for drug-taking when darkeness conceals the intents and activities of drug users. For 19°70 of yamba smokers the money spent on drugs was over 5000 FCFA (= $14) per month. Another 20% of our sample declared spending between 2000 and 5000 FCFA per month, but the same proportion of nondrug addicts reckoned that their freinds who smoked wasted regularly over 10,000 FCFA per month on drugs. These sums seem very high for a schoolgoing population deprived of substantial financial resources. There are also specific occasions during which more drugs are bought, namely important holidays and dances. Several yamba users also said they smoked mostly while preparing their exams in order to get more lucid and be able to solve their school problems or to be less sensitive to the exhaustion caused by sustained concentration. Frequenting artists also offered special occasions for smoking cannabis. Some adolescents confessed they took drugs, because "reggae men" do so, following the example of Bob Marley, a reggae singer who is extremely popular in Africa. Indeed, the Jamaican reggae master has often preached in his songs that smoking weed was part and parcel of the liberation of the youth and of decolonization in general. In Jamaica prolber, Rastafarians are heavy smokers of marijuana which is to them a sacred herb that has a political and religious dimension. This drug is also considered harmless by the working classes of the country. In our sample the mean age at which users begin to take drugs is between 17 and 19 years, but 10°70 of respondents placed it before 14. Drug users and nondrug-users agreed on age distribution regarding drug addiction. Perception of the Effects of Drugs
Respondents were requested to specify the consequences of drug addiction along two opposite lines: beneficial effects and noxious effects of drugs. Only 5°70 of subjects believed that drugs had no beneficial effect, and exactly the same proportion held they had no noxious effects! This shows how mitigated their judgment is regarding the good or bad effects of drugs. Over half of the drug-users find that yamba makes one feel fine, gives one a feeling of ease, confidence, and performance. It procures, so they said, happiness, strength, and unlimited vigor. Several also underlined its therapeutic effects on certain diseases. Some found that cannabis gave them
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a feeling of superiority over others and a taste o f freedom so they "can better exteriorize themselves." Regarding the noxious effects, m a n y drug addicts believe that cannabis could ruin their health (35070), attack their nervous system, and even turn them mad (31 °7o). Some went even further by mentioning the risk o f death involved. Many (14°'/0) also insisted on the risk of total rejection o f addicts by their entourage. A final argument was that drugs could "slow down the national development o f the country." C o m p a r e d to drug addicts, nondrug-users interviewed insisted much more upon the noxious effects of drugs and systematically marginalize drug users. Nondrug-users not only quoted all the arguments against drug addiction quoted above by drug addicts, but they also added that y a m b a often induced to violence and destruction. They also said that it made the user nervous, gave him frequent fits of insomnia and headaches, intoxicated him, and urged him "to do anything." On the other hand, some 12070 o f nondrug-users were convinced that drugs made the user happy and increased his self-confidence. I f several Senegalese consumers o f y a m b a underline its positive aspects and refuse to be marginal in their own society, it is, according to us, because the use of this herb in traditional medicine is frequent in Senegal and dates back to remote times, a' No doubt it is also due to the fact that its use is partly accepted by the traditional culture o f the country. The use of cannabis sativa always has to be contextualized in the sociocultural system which determines its nature and acceptance in a given society. It remains true however that the majority of our respondents underlined the noxious effects of drugs. Most people agree to curb drug addiction with severe repressive measures, since, to use Giono-Barber's words (1980), "cannabis is a debilitating drug that causes anti-social behaviors including acts o f violence . . . . Some even claim that it is responsible for the decline of civilization." In the following section, it appears clearly that the entourage o f the drug addicts is generally against the consumption o f drugs. The Reactions of the Entourage The risk of becoming an addict is always greater for a subject who is maladjusted to his environment or lives in an unfavorable one in which he
14According to Du Toits' (1975) historico-ethnographic description of the growth of cannabis sativa in Africa, the plant was introduced in West Africa only in the second world war. Thi~ assertion seems inaccurate to us since yamba is known to Senegalese people whose memories go far beyond that date.
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can easily get those substances that cause toxicomania. But does the drug addict feel maladjusted? How does he perceive the reactions of his entourage toward him? To document this we have recorded his perception of his parent's, teacher's, and friend's reactions, three groups that have a strong and continuous influence on his behavior. Drug users asserted in their vast majority that neither parents, nor the family, nor teachers knew about their dependence on drugs, while their friends did know perfectly well. In fact, adolescents' peers usually enjoy a great measure o f confidence in matters that are not accepted by society at large (and perhaps precisely because o f such matters). Parental reaction is perceived as the most violent, as it is likened to a malediction. The drug addict is cursed and despised by his direct entourage and is a shame on the whole family. The drug addict wavers between the feeling that he is abandoned by his kith and kin and the impression that they are trying to redress and advise him. He therefore receives severe blame from his family. Regarding teachers, drug addicts declared they generally did not know, but when they did, they were extremely scornful, blamed them, or stayed simply indifferent. Concerning their friends' reaction, drug users felt it was either indifference or approval. But several friends would also feel disdainful and forsake their friends who take drugs. When nondrug addicts were asked their opinion about drug addicts who took hard drugs, most o f them called them "mad or abnormal" (17070) or "unconscious" (17°/0). Several concluded their comments with this threat: "If they dont't stop, they are lost for society" (16°70). They are convinced that "these ignorants" would die young or would have at least a dark and miserable future, since several respondents thought "they ran the risk of catching a cancer." Others accused them of hampering national recovery and considered them noxious to the Senegalese society. As to the question "what to do with drug-addicts?," opinion is very divided between these two attitudes: "drug addicts must be recuperated since they are not entirely responsible for what they are doing," and "they must be eliminated."
CONCLUSION It is obvious that the circulation and use of drugs is very ancient in the Senegalese traditional society, as testifies the use of Indian hemp (or yamba) as a medicinal or hallucinogen plant and also the current consumption o f cola nuts and palm-wine. But the meaning o f the word drug has to be specified for Senegalese people, and more particularly school-going ones, to
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differentiate between the so-called soft drugs and the intermediate and hard drugs. In fact, soft drugs such as cigarettes, cola nuts, coffee, and tea, though widely used, are seldom perceived negatively by respondents. Things are quite different when it comes to hard and intermediate drugs. Their perception is changing even now because of the progressive and profound Islamization fo the country on the one hand, and on the other hand because of the gradual adoption of the values of the Western world. While maintaining itself in the social categories which "traditionally" take drugs (petty trades, "dirty" or "tough" people, such as mechanics, dockers, drivers), the use of drugs has also reached school-going milieus. It is mostly out of curiosity that school-going adolescents are first tempted but the shortcomings of the Senegalese society, which is now undergoing a serious economic, social, and moral crisis, also play an important part. School-going adolescents are frustrated by the underdevelopment of their country, and are literally obsessed by the ever-increasing rates of failure at school. As a consequence, they are increasingly fascinated by all the forms of rebellion or emancipation that their counterparts adopt in other parts of the world. They are also becoming increasingly aware that drugs exist and that they can help "forget the world, if you can't change it." However these intermediate and hard drugs are perceived negatively by the Senegalese society because of three factors mainly: first, religion condemns the use of drugs; second, drugs are often associated with the idea of madness or death. Finally, drugs are closely associated with delinquency and crime. In fact, if the use of drugs is so vehemently stigmatized in the Senegalese society it is because it threatens directly the norms and foundations of that society.
REFERENCES
Boroffka, A. (1966). Mental illness and Indian hemp in Lagos. East Afr. Med. 43: 377-384. D'Hondt, W., and Vandewiele, M. (1983). Attitudes of Senegalese schoolgoing adolescents towards tobacco-smoking. J. Youth Adoles. 12: 333-353. Diop, B., and Collomb, H. (1974). Le chanvre indien au S6n6gal. Etude psychosociologique. Med. Afr. Noire 21: 225-358. Diop, B., Ahyi, R., Tripet, L., and Seck, A. (1980). Approche th6rapeutique de la toxicomanie: Experience s6n6galaise. Med. Afr. Noire 27: 213-218. Du Toit, B. (1975). Dagga: The history and ethnographic setting of"cannabis sativa" in Southern Africa. In Rubin, E. (ed.), Cannabis and Culture, Mouton, The Hague. Giono-Barber, H. (1980). Probl~mespos6s par I'usagedu cannabis. Mdd. Afr. Noire27: 197-213. Gras, G., Fares, T., and Giono-Barber, H. (1980). Toxicomanie au Datura metel; d~pistage rapide de la drogue. M~d. Afr. Noire 27: 233-236. Hanck, C., and Dieng, I. (1979). Nouveaux opiums pour la jeunesse Dakaroise. Environment Afr. 5: 13-18. Kerharo, J., and Adams, J. (1974). La Pharmacopde S~ndgalaise Traditionnelle, Vigot Fr~res, Paris.
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