Some Insunko brands contain
cannabis, cocaine – Prof Goma
By Masuzyo Chakwe
ZAMBIA Tobacco Control Consortium chairperson Fastone Goma has warned that there will be a lot of problems in years to come which will cost the health system money to treat diseases if action is not taken to stop the use of insunko or tobacco.
And Professor Goma says there is a lot of obesity in Lusaka.
In an interview, Prof Goma said there was some ongoing research right now by two master students who are trying to find out exactly why women were using insunko.
“And we will hear from them very soon but the group that he has found is a group of women who are usually patronising kitchen parties, Chilanga mulilos and things like that … things to do with marriage. Their motivation seems to be some sexual pleasure that the insunko seems to bring though they are saying that it makes their bodies warm so that their men can enjoy sex better,” he said. “Now we don’t know how scientifically proven that is but because of that it seems like it’s very trendy among young women especially. Now I hear more and more teenagers are taking up insunko. And it’s a very increasing trend…I was talking to a woman who was complaining about this same insunko that she found it in the school bag of her grade six child… a grade six how old is she? She should be around 12, 13 years and at that age you are not really thinking of them getting to think so much about sexual activity but it very much looks like they are going hand in hand. So we are having young and younger girls being enticed into getting early sexual debuts which is very bad for them because you know early sexual debuts are related to cancer of the cervix and all sexually transmitted infections that come with it.”
The professor of cardiovascular health said insunko was just tobacco which was ground then add a few other ingredients to enable it to be well absorbed from the nose and mouth.
“Now in tobacco the substance they are going for is nicotine and nicotine exists in an acidic environment and in that acidic environment it gets poorly absorbed. And it seems these people know because in preparing insunko they put some ash or soda to make it a bit alkaline. That improves absorption of nicotine from the tobacco,” he said.
“But in doing that it improves absorption of other poisons as well. Tobacco is tobacco … it has more than 4,000 poisons in it and it gets worse when you try and burn it for those who smoke it. And we know more than 50 [of those poisons] cause cancer. And so people who sniff are very open to having cancer of the nose or having what we call rhinitis, a nose that seems to be predisposed to allergies so they constantly sneeze and you find in the nose there are some nasal bridges we call them turbinates they are constantly inflamed because of the sniffing of the tobacco.”
He said this was not good for health at all.
Prof Goma said for those who put the insunko in their mouth, it actually does more damage to the mouth.
“Of course they put because nicotine can get absorbed through the lining of the mouth. But in putting in the mouth it destroys teeth, teeth become very brittle. They easily break so if they try to eat chiwaya, the tooth will just break. And for some the teeth just become discoloured. And then they get very open to getting infections of their gums. Something that we call gingivitis and in the long run they are also open to having cancer of the mouth or throat. All these are bad effects that come from tobacco,” he said. “And what is worse with insunko is that tobacco does not only cause problems to the areas where it is exposed, it causes damage actually to the whole body. In the body we have an organ called a pancreas which produces insulin which takes care of sugar. It can actually get damaged by tobacco. And so someone can easily get sugar disease because of that.”
Prof Goma said another problem was that women were predisposed to diabetes because of weight problems which becomes worse with the use of tobacco or insunko.
“We have a lot of obesity in Lusaka. The last survey (The STEPS survey of 2010 and another one in 2017) we did I think… almost 40 per cent of women we surveyed were either overweight or obese. That’s a very high rate. It’s higher than those fat women you see in America. At one time every one was saying America had the most obese women in the world but I think some certain pockets in Zambia also have that. Now you can imagine people that are already predisposed to obesity then they put tobacco there,” he said. “It discourages the pancreas from doing even the little work it is able to do so they easily get into diabetes. It is very difficult to treat with tablets especially and most of them will need to go on to using insulin to treat the diabetes all because of insunko or tobacco.”
Prof Goma said it was very dangerous to insert insunko in their private parts because the private parts have very sensitive types of lining.
“The cells are constantly changing and there is need for a lot of hygiene in that area. And within that area we have an amount of bacteria which maintain the PH… maintaining the acidity of the environment to make sure the area is nicely prepared for sexual activity and more so for reproductive activity because for the sperms to manoeuvre through that area you need a certain environment and the body makes sure that environment is there under normal circumstances,” he said. “When you put tobacco there, the tobacco destroys that environment completely. I have told you they are putting several substances in this tobacco to make it alkaline so the whole environment then changes and those poisons kills some of those bacteria which require to keep that environment. And the problem is that those poisons irritate the cells and those cells either stop producing the fluid they are supposed to produce so that you start getting a dry vagina which will easily give you a disease called vaginitis. And in the long run you have a possibility of getting cancers as well. Even without getting the tobacco to the cervix of the womb… just by the body being exposed to tobacco it actually does cause cancer of the cervix. The commonest cancer you will find in women in Zambia and among the risk factors is tobacco use. So just by taking tobacco into the body you are already predisposed to having cancer of the cervix. Then you put tobacco directly onto the cervix itself meaning you are doubling the risk. Without us taking active action we are going to find a lot of problems in these women in years to come and it is going to cost our health system a lot of money to treat these diseases. And it is going to take away young lives all because of the ignorance that is there in them trying to do things that they don’t know are harmful to their health.”
Prof Goma said there should be adequate information sharing for people to hear about these harms of insunko.
“Unfortunately, these are not stories you hear being talked about among women. They just secretly trade in this insunko and nobody wants to tell the other that what they are doing is a poison and now in Lusaka I hear there are four brands of insunko – Rwandese brand, Burundi brand, Tanzania brand and the Zambian brand. And all of them seem to have different ingredients in them,” he said. “One of them I hear has cannabis in it. Another one I hear has cocaine so you can see how bad it is getting. So we need to find ways of getting these messages to women because they need to protect themselves against the harm. For those who are selling of course for them it’s business. Nowadays people want easy business and I hear the women who sell this insunko are having it very nice now because people actually go to get the insunko from their homes. They don’t have need to go and sell door to door as they did last time.”
Prof Goma said it was difficult to police the trade because it is personal and done at household level.
“So this control would be by the people themselves that they take it upon themselves to keep away from these vices. So if there is no demand, then the people making it will stop making it and that will be the end of the insunko trade,” he said.
Prof Goma said for those who use it to control blood pressure, the truth is that insunko just like any other tobacco causes blood pressure to increase.
He said it causes blood pressure to increase by tightening the blood vessels and making the heart to beat very fast.
“For those who already have blood pressure insunko is a very bad drug to take because they would easily get a heart attack or a stroke.
For those with low blood pressure, it’s not the best way of increasing their blood pressure,” warned Prof Goma.