Six months after the prohibition of water pipes, the Central Narcotics Office announced that it has carried out dozens of arrests in clubs in the capital.
MO12345LEMOND With AFP
The Malian authorities began this week to enforce the ban on chicha by proceeding, according to them, to dozens of arrests in clubs in the capital and to the seizure of many water pipes. “Vigorous descent of the Central Narcotics Office [OCS] on the Chicha Clubs of Bamako: around fifty individuals in jail and an important batch of seized equipment,” reported the OCS on Facebook.
The OCS published photos of an operation carried out according to him Tuesday, February 14 in the evening, showing his agents apprehending a certain number of young men and women and embedded them at the back of pick-up. A photo shows a bunch of bulk hookah. “No more grace period given by the authorities to importers, distributors, sellers and consumers of chicha in Mali”, says the ocs.
The authorities, dominated by the military who took power by force in 2020, had caused surprise in August 2022, announcing the ban on chicha. The junta had not specially pointed out until then by such acts of prohibition.
more harmful than cigarettes
The bars where young men, mostly, diluted by pulling on the water pipe have flowered in recent years in Bamako, a relatively preserved capital of multifaceted violence and the jihadist propagation that afflict Mali for more than ten years. The authorities had given bars six months to close. The prohibition really came into force this Wednesday.
A decree signed by six ministries warned that consumers had had one to ten days in prison and a fine of 300 to 10,000 francs (from 0.50 to 15 euros). This measure divided the Malians between defenders of public health and distraction enthusiasts.
Mali is a very largely Muslim country and the interpretations of Islam are generally not favorable to shisha or cigarettes. But it is also a secular country, which tolerates alcohol for example, even if consumption is limited to certain public places and that the majority of flows and restaurants do not serve.
A working group of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned in 2017 against the dangerousness of the hookah, one to ten times more harmful than cigarettes and which is not the subject of the same awareness campaigns that tobacco.