By Kingsley Okoye
The Senate has urged the Federal Government to declare a State of Emergency on illicit drugs and drug abuse in the country.
This followed adoption of a motion on “Urgent need to address the menace of drug abuse in Nigeria” at plenary on Tuesday by Sen. Babangida Hussain (APC -Jigawa).
Presenting the motion, Babangida said that Nigeria was faced with rising cases of drug abuse which had reached an unprecedented level.
He said Nigeria had transformed from a mere transit country in the 1990s, Into a country filled with drug addiction and drug traffickers all over its land space.
“A population of between 30million and 35 million spends approximately 15,000 and 30,000 dollars annually on psychotropic drugs and alcoholic beverages in Nigeria, ” he said.
He said the statistics by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the European Union on drug use in Nigeria, stated that about 14.3 million Nigerians between the ages 15 and 64, were drug users.
“The report stated that 10.6 million addicts were cannabis users, 4.6 addicts used pharmaceutical opioids and 238,0000 abusers used amphetamines,” he said.
He said the prevalence of drug abuse per geo political zone in 2017 showed that the North-West accounted for 12 per cent, North-East 13.6 per cent North- Central 10.0 per cent, South-West 22.4 per cent South-South 16.6 per cent and the South-East 13.8 per cent.
Babaginda said the main drugs abused in Nigeria were mood altering or psycho active drugs, performance-enhancing drugs, dependency drugs and prescription drugs.
He said the side effects included addiction, trauma, mental illness and often times resultes in ill health, violence and involvement in criminal activities.
He said that a significant number of deaths from accidents and violent crimes had been traced to the activities of persons under the influence of drugs.
He expressed worry that the war against drug abuse beibg carried out by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency was not yielding the required result.
Babaginda said there was need to include special drug education in the schools curriculum.
He also expressed concern that the prevalence of drug abuse in Nigeria was a public health challenge that seemed to be on the increase in spite of intervention by international, regional, federal and state bodies through laws and policies.
Contributing, Sen.Mohammed Monguno (APC-Borno) said drug abuse was affectiing the productivity of youths as it had negative economic effects, while also distorting cultural values.(NAN)
