SUVA, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Fiji Police Force has started outreach programs to preach against drugs in villagers across the country.
This week they are on Kadavu, which is the fourth largest island in Fiji and several marijuana farms have been raided in the island.
This community policing team is headed by the Fiji Police Force chaplain Waisale Tikowale. The two weeks visit is part of a holistic approach in tackling crimes and the war on drugs in Fiji.
Fiji's Deputy Secretary for Defence and National Security Ilai Moceica said at a Narcotics Workshop in Fiji's capital Suva last year that 100 patients were admitted at Saint Giles, Fiji's only psychiatric hospital, between May 2017 to April 2018 due to substance abuse alone.
The most commonly abused substances in Fiji are marijuana, methamphetamine, cigarettes, kava and alcohol.
Moceica urged stakeholders to holistically view this as a national problem and come up with strategic solutions that would not only allow enforcement agencies to curb the illicit use of drugs and eradicate cultivators but to commit Fiji's resources and time to this worthy cause.
Fiji's Commissioner of Police Sitiveni Qiliho said earlier that the war on drugs was a never-ending battle that evolved at a rapid pace in Fiji and an integrated, multilateral, and multi-agency response to control drug problems was needed.
