A recent report by the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) has revealed Western is the leading region in the consumption of the illicit brew popularly known as ‘chang’aa’.

The report follows a nationwide survey that the authority conducted over a month ago and was released in February.

According to the report, the consumption of ‘chang’aa’ was prevalent in the Western region at 11.4 per cent.

The Nyanza region comes in second at 6.3 per cent while the Rift Valley region comes in third at 3.6 per cent.

In the same report, the Western region also leads in the consumption of traditional liquor at 12.9 per cent.

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The Coast region follows at 7.4 per cent while the Nyanza region comes in third, at 2.2 per cent.

However, when it came to the consumption of portable spirits, the report ranked the Coast region the highest.

Nairobi region also featured in the indexing as the region in which legally made alcohol is consumed most, followed by the Central region.

Likewise, the Western region leads in the prevalence of current use of not less that one substance of abuse at 26.4 per cent.

Still on substance abuse, the Nairobi region was ranked second at 20.7 per cent while the Eastern region came in third at 19.2 per cent.

While identifying alcohol as the most abused drug, NACADA underscored the need to address the seriously rising problem of substance abuse in the country.

"The situation has been made worse due to the growing problem of drug abuse in our schools," NACADA report said.

"The most abused drug in Kenya is alcohol, followed by tobacco, khat, cannabis, prescription drugs, heroin and cocaine."

According to the report, alcohol consumers form the largest population of drug abusers, with 3,199,199 people using alcohol, followed by tobacco with 2,305,929 users.

The population that uses Khat, commonly known as miraa totals 964,737, while cannabis abuse affects 518,807 individuals.

The smallest portion of drug abusers, which stands at 60,407 people, were the users of prescription drugs.

This report comes as the country's top leadership has waged a war against heavy consumption of alcohol and manufacturing illegal alcoholic drinks.