‘The problem is the family’: Fiji’s drug abuse crisis

Navitalai Tamanitoakula blames the loss of ‘family values’ for Fiji’s rising drug use.
Photo: Caleb Fotheringham

Fiji is facing a hard drug crisis and people are concerned the situation is only getting worse.
According to residents of the capital, the increase in drug use, especially among young people, is due to the loss of “family values”.
The drug problem is also causing an increase in the number of new HIV cases.

Residents of Suva, Fiji’s capital, blame the loss of family values for the country’s methamphetamine crisis.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka last month urged the public not to even consider trying drugs after a video circulated on social media of a young naked woman begging for a hit.

There have also been headlines reporting users accessing the highly addictive drug, known locally as ‘ice’, via ‘Bluetooth’.

Bluetoothing involves someone attempting to get high by taking blood from a host (who has injected methamphetamine) and then injecting it into another person. This is a dangerous practice that can have serious health consequences.

Navitalai Tamanitoakula, who was in Suva from Nausori on Saturday morning, confirmed to RNZ Pacific what is an open secret: the drug situation is getting worse.

“I see that in the city, looking at the people, especially the young people,” he said. “If you look at their faces, you can recognize them, they are high,” he said.

“You always see them standing in the corner with a bottle of glue and inhaling it. They ask for money.”

He said that there used to be ‘young people’ in the village, but now they hang out in the city.

Tamanitoakula blames the departure of “family values” for this problem.

“The problem lies with the family. Children need to go back home, parents need to take care of the children and discipline them.

“Now children can talk to their parents and sometimes it even goes so far as to swear at them.”

Fiji is used as a transit country for methamphetamine and cocaine.
Photo: Edin Pasovic / OCCRP

‘It will definitely get worse’

Pauline Doris, like Tamanitoakula, believes that parents have a greater role.

“It is also the responsibility of parents to watch their child and make sure they don’t get involved in these kinds of things,” she said.

“It’s definitely getting worse, but (the government) has done nothing to solve the problem.”

Doris has heard that drugs mainly affect high school students, but she doesn’t know anyone who uses them.

“I have heard news and rumors, especially from some of my friends, that some of their relatives have been arrested and sent back to the police station.”

According to Pauline Doris, it is the responsibility of parents to ensure that their children do not get involved in drugs.
Photo: Caleb Fotheringham

In January, Fijian police made a major drug bust, seizing nearly five tons of methamphetamine with a street value of more than FJ$2 billion. Fourteen people have been charged in connection with the seizure.

Authorities have acknowledged that international drug cartels use Fiji as a transit point for hard drugs destined for lucrative markets in Australia and New Zealand.

Since then, there have been reports of drug-addicted children, some as young as 10, while police continue to raid and arrest, including high school students.

The region’s substance abuse council announced this week that the number of new HIV cases in the first half of the year rose to more than 500, surpassing the total number of cases (415) expected for 2023.

Josua Naisele, acting chair of the council, told the public broadcaster that “the highest numbers of HIV cases appear to be coming from people who inject themselves with drugs.”

Naisele also warned that the (recent https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/525153/what-you-need-to-know-about-auckland-city-mission-food-parcel-meth-lolly-contamination “meth lollies”) discovery in New Zealand should raise alarm bells and he “hopes and prays” it doesn’t reach Fiji.

Around this time last year, the government came up with a national plan to tackle the rise of the disease.

Pio Tikoduadua.
Photo: Facebook / Fiji Government

Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua told RNZ Pacific earlier this month that “poverty” is the main driver of the drug problem.

He said the government is “really trying hard” to tackle poverty and “address the drug crisis in a comprehensive way”.

There are reports that malicious people have also infiltrated the police station.

A senior police officer in the city of Lautoka is being investigated after he was allegedly caught with drugs last month.

Tikoduadua, who is overseeing a major “police reset”, told the Fiji Sun newspaper: “The police have problems, I recognise that.”

“There are people who have done things that we are not proud of. We need to get rid of those people,” he was quoted as saying.

Shital Devi doesn’t know anyone who uses drugs, but he regularly sees updates from the police that they have made drug busts.
Photo: Caleb Fotheringham

Shital Devi regularly hears on social media that the police have conducted raids and found drugs.

“It used to be less, but now you hear it almost every day,” she says.

Devi says she doesn’t know anyone who uses drugs personally and she hasn’t seen anyone using drugs. She has seen bongs and needles lying around on the street.

“It’s getting worse and worse because today it’s not only adult users who are confronted with drugs, but also school children. So the situation is getting worse and worse,” she said.

“When students start doing this, it damages their mental health. They end up nowhere and have no future.

“They won’t know what responsibility is, they’ll just be addicted to drugs.”

Mesake Tapua says Fiji’s growing drug problem is creating a bad image of the country.
Photo: Caleb Fotheringham

Tourism is Fiji’s main economic driver, welcoming over 920,000 visitors last year.

Holidaymakers from Australia and New Zealand are the main source markets, accounting for more than 70 percent of total arrivals. It is considered the center of economic activity in the Pacific Islands region.

But the methamphetamine crisis has given Fiji a bad image, Mesake Tapua, another Suva resident, told RNZ Pacific.

“Fiji should be the first country to tackle the problem before it spreads to small island states.”

He said he knew people who used drugs.

“You see it giving (users) all kinds of diseases, it’s a new way of life for them.

“We are concerned about the youth because it is destroying their minds when they should actually be in college or school.”

More than 50 ziplock plastics containing white crystals believed to be methamphetamine and 15 bags containing dried leaves believed to be marijuana were seized by Fiji police on August 13. Three men believed to be involved in the sale and distribution of illegal drugs were arrested in separate raids.
Photo: Fiji Police Force

‘Bluetooth’ is ‘glamorized’

Kalesi Volatabu, founder of Drug-Free World Fiji, said the problem has spread to urban and rural areas, in all parts of the island.

According to Volatabu, one in two or three people in Fiji knows someone who uses methamphetamine.

“If it’s not within their own family, they know someone who has actually gone through the same crisis,” she said, adding, “anything from Bluetooth or sharing needles or cocaine, heroin, inhalants, sniffing glue.”

According to Volatabu, research her organization conducted in 2019 revealed that the drugs in Fiji are intended for the Fijian market and not just for larger markets in Australia and New Zealand.

“There was a demand for it here in this country, and that was five years ago.”