National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Chairman/Chief Executive Ahmadu Giade yesterday said drug trafficking persists because the most vulnerable substance abusers are not properly educated on the dangers.
He said drug abuse is spilling over into countries lying on trafficking routes such as in West and Central Africa, which he said are witnessing increasing number of cocaine users, cannabis smokers and those who use amphetamine-type stimulants.
Giade said prevention must start with a community in which families, teachers, youth leaders and mentors care about the vulnerable, and in which the needs of the youth are not lost in the development of broader national drug policies.
He spoke in Lagos at the First West Africa Forum on Drugs (WAFOD), organised by the People against Drug Dependence and Ignorance (PADDI Foundation), with the support of the World Federation against Drugs (WFAD). It had the theme: “Mainstreaming health and child-right concerns in substance abuse policy, planning and programming in West Africa.”
Giade, in a keynote address delivered on his behalf by NDLEA Director, Drug Demand Reduction Mr Baba Oseni, said drug use most commonly starts in adolescence when the brain is vulnerable.
According to him, childhood is the time when drug habits are established, adding that it is crucial how a society protects children from drug use.
“The international drug policy debate today focuses on drug-using adults and this has overshadowed the moral and legal obligations to protect children from drugs,” Giade said.
Other speakers included Country Representative, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Mr Koli Kouame; a former Director, Drug Evaluation and Research at National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mrs Hauwa Keri; PADDI’s director Mr Eze Eluchie, and Prof. Ifeoma Okoye of the University of Nigeria, Enugu, among others.
Kouame, represented by UNODC’s Project Coordinator Glen Prichard, said West and East Africa remain vulnerable to the trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs.
He said drug trafficking and abuse persist due to inadequate resources to fight the crime, limited understanding of the nature of drug problem, reactive policing methods, lack of modern equipment, inadequate technical know-how, and limited number of evidence-based prevention and treatment programmes.
Eluchie said youths are falling prey to drug abuse, which manifests in increasing violent crime, fatal accidents, and domestic/spousal abuse.
He rejected calls for drug use to be given legal backing, saying: “We cannot afford the risk of drugs being legalised. The push for its legalisation and de-criminalisation must be rejected especially as everybody agrees with the need to protect our health and our children.”
Eluchie said those who deserve punishment and incarceration and those who traffic in drugs, and not the victims who consume them.
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