While the country debates unemployment, housing, education and economic growth, a quieter and potentially devastating crisis is taking root in schools, homes and communities across the country.
Children are smoking Hubbly Bubbly. They are vaping. Some are mixing these substances with alcohol and cannabis. Some are skipping classes to smoke. Some are becoming distributors to finance their habits.
Children as young as 10 have reportedly been found smoking Hubbly Bubbly.
This should be a national emergency.
Instead, the country has largely treated it as a social nuisance.
That must change.
The National Council is therefore right to investigate the impact of Hubbly Bubbly on Namibian youth. The consultations currently being conducted across several regions represent an important opportunity to confront a problem that has been allowed to grow in the shadows.
But Namibia must be clear about one thing: this cannot become another parliamentary investigation that ends with a report, a few recommendations and no meaningful action.
The evidence already before the country is sufficiently alarming.
During previous oversight visits, the National Council heard reports of learners using Hubbly Bubbly and vapes because of peer pressure and permissive attitudes at home. Some parents reportedly allow their children to smoke because they believe Hubbly is safer than cigarettes.
This is dangerously misguided.
A child does not become safe simply because the tobacco product is flavoured, colourful or socially fashionable. Nicotine remains addictive. Smoke remains toxic. Chemicals remain harmful. The body does not distinguish between a fashionable device and a traditional cigarette when it is exposed to substances that damage the lungs, heart and brain.
The most dangerous deception surrounding Hubbly Bubbly is precisely the perception that it is harmless.
It is not.
A single session can expose users to substantial levels of carbon monoxide and other toxic substances. The smoke contains nicotine, heavy metals and other dangerous agents. Shared pipes create additional risks of infectious disease. And for adolescents, the consequences are particularly serious because the brain and lungs are still developing.
The warning from medical experts should be impossible to ignore: nicotine dependence can develop rapidly among young people, while exposure during adolescence can contribute to behavioural and mental-health problems and long-term respiratory damage.
Yet some Namibian children are already describing Hubbly Bubbly as something they need to relax, concentrate or cope with examinations.
That is not experimentation. That is the beginning of dependency.
The country should be especially concerned by reports that learners are mixing Hubbly with alcohol, cannabis and other substances. The resulting combination can create unpredictable and dangerous effects. Reports of hallucinations, heart palpitations, nausea, exhaustion and behavioural changes should not be dismissed as teenage mischief.
Nor should the loss of academic focus.
When educators report that academically gifted learners are losing interest in their studies because of addiction, Namibia should listen carefully. Every such learner represents potential being eroded. Every child who drops out, loses focus or becomes dependent on substances represents not only a personal tragedy, but a national loss.
Namibia is already struggling to create enough jobs for its young people. It is already confronting high levels of inequality and a difficult economic environment. It cannot afford to allow a new generation to enter adulthood carrying preventable addictions.
The danger is not confined to poor communities or troubled households. Hubbly Bubbly has become a social phenomenon that cuts across class and geography. Its image as fashionable, sophisticated and relatively harmless has allowed it to move into spaces where cigarettes might once have been rejected.
This is precisely why the response must be national.
The law must catch up.
Namibia ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and enacted tobacco-control legislation more than a decade ago. But the market has changed dramatically since then. Vaping products, flavoured nicotine products and modern hookah culture have created new challenges that existing legislation may not adequately address.
Parliament must close those gaps.
There must be stronger regulation of the sale, advertising and marketing of these products. Age restrictions must be enforced, not merely written into legislation. Products designed to appeal to children through flavours, colours and packaging must be examined critically. Retailers who knowingly sell nicotine products to minors must face meaningful consequences.
Schools must also be supported.
This is not simply a matter of suspending learners and sending them home. Discipline is necessary, but discipline without prevention, counselling and rehabilitation is insufficient. A child struggling with addiction does not need only punishment. That child needs intervention.
Parents, however, cannot escape responsibility.
The home is often the first place where children learn what is acceptable. Parents who permit children to smoke Hubbly Bubbly because they believe it is safer than cigarettes are not protecting them. They are normalising substance use and potentially exposing them to addiction at the very stage of life when they are least equipped to understand its consequences.
The message must be unequivocal: children should not be smoking.
Not cigarettes. Not Hubbly Bubbly. Not vapes.
Namibia must also confront the commercial interests that benefit from the normalisation of youth consumption. Any industry that profits from products capable of creating addiction must be subject to rigorous regulation. The state cannot allow attractive packaging, social media marketing and flavoured products to become a gateway to nicotine dependence among children.
This is ultimately a question of national priorities.
We often speak about developing Namibia’s human capital. We speak about innovation, entrepreneurship, productivity and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We speak about preparing young people for the jobs of the future.
But we cannot build a prosperous future while allowing children to lose their health, concentration and potential to addiction.
A nation that neglects its youth is not merely failing the present. It is compromising the future.
The National Council has done the right thing by reopening this conversation. But the country must demand more than consultation.
We need a comprehensive national strategy on youth substance abuse. We need reliable data. We need stronger laws. We need enforcement. We need school-based prevention programmes. We need accessible counselling and rehabilitation. We need parents to take responsibility. And we need a coordinated response from government, schools, communities and civil society.
Above all, we need urgency.
Because this crisis is not arriving tomorrow.
It is already here.
It is sitting in classrooms. It is being carried in school bags. It is being sold in communities. It is being normalised in homes. And it is quietly claiming the potential of Namibian children.
The country must not wait until a generation is addicted before it decides that the problem is serious.
Namibia must act now.
Because every child who becomes dependent on nicotine is a future being placed at risk.
And if we continue to look away, Namibia will not merely be smoking Hubbly Bubbly.
It will be smoking away its future.
