Trucks shipping apples from South Africa discovered to also smuggle enhanced cannabis drugs into Tanzania

An apple a day can actually keep sanity away.

Trucks that ferry fruits from Southern African Countries have been found to also be used to smuggle exotic drugs, especially laboratory enhanced cannabis into Tanzania.

The Commissioner General of the Drug Control and Enforcement Authority (DCEA) Aretas James Lyimo revealed that the factory processed marijuana usually comes fully packaged looking like tea leaves or snacks.

The ‘Bhang’ drugs, according to the official, usually originate from Eswatini, Malawi, Zambia and South Africa where people are allowed to grow marijuana in their farms for export overseas.

“Last year, however, farmers in those countries produced a surplus of marijuana and they resulted in smuggling the left-offer consignment into nearby states such as Tanzania and other Eastern African Countries,” revealed the DCEA Commissioner General Lyimo.

Last year the DCEA managed to impound more than 600 kilograms of packaged enhanced semi-processed marijuana at the Zambia-Tanzania border at Tunduma.

Dried Marijuana leaves are usually very light; therefore a shipment of 600 kilograms translates into an extremely large consignment.

The drugs were being transported alongside the apple crates from South Africa. The packets were found to be enveloped on the sides of the fruit boxes.

As it happens, the Marijuana grown in the country, including the highly potent Kisimiri variety from Arusha has only around 10 percent of the mind-altering toxic Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

However the industrial processed and chemically enhanced cannabis from Southern Africa contain over 40 percent of the Tetrahydrocannabinol, four times more potent than the local variety.

Marijuana refers to the dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the Cannabis Sativa or Cannabis Indica plants. The plant contains the mind-altering chemical THC and other.

Since 2023, authorities in Tanzania have been battling the influx of alien cannabis which has so far earned the name of ‘Skanka.’

The enhanced marijuana is reported to be turning Tanzanian young people into aggressive monsters that can attack and even kill at whim.

Speaking in Moshi recently, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa expressed concern over the youth indulgence in narcotic drugs and how the toxicants are altering their minds for the worse.