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Tag: Drug addiction

  • Stakeholders urge political will to tackle drug addiction crisis

    Stakeholders urge political will to tackle drug addiction crisis

    Key stakeholders have demanded stronger political commitment and community-driven solutions to deepen action on Nigeria’s substance abuse crisis.

    The push came at a pre-commemoration conference by Initiative for Relief from Hard Drug and Addiction (IRHDAA), Global Shout (Washington, USA), Federal Ministry of Health, and National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

    The gathering drew health professionals, policymakers, civil society groups, and recovering addicts in a shared resolve to reframe national discourse around drug use, recovery, and mental health. The event also featured the premiere of a documentary chronicling lives of rehabilitated drug users, a symbolic moment underscoring the human cost and hope embedded in the recovery process.

    One of the recommendations at the conference was institution of a National Drug Abuse Awareness Day, a move to embed anti-drug messaging and education into the cultural fabric. Advocates believe such a day, themed around local ideas, would consolidate public health campaigns, spur community engagement, and encourage national reflection.

    “The time has come for Nigeria to own its narrative on addiction recovery,” said Henrietta Bakura-Onyeneke, director of Narcotics & Drug Abuse Division at the ministry. She noted importance of homegrown strategies rooted in empathy, cultural understanding, and preventive care.

    A recurring theme was the need for presidential leadership. Drawing a parallel with former United States President, Ronald Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign of 1980s, Dr. Ali Kareem, director of Global Shout, urged President Bola Tinubu to replicate such.

    “A presidential voice can cut through stigma and catalyse investment,” Dr. Kareem said. “We need commitment at the top, not to punish but to build rehabilitation structures.”

    An emotional segment centred around family responses. Speakers stressed that punitive actions or secrecy worsen the situation, pushing victims further into isolation and self-destruction.

    “Locking up a struggling child or pretending the problem doesn’t exist only deepens their isolation,” said Francis A. Okogun, Acting Assistant Director of Media & Advocacy at the NDLEA. “Addiction is a disease, not a moral failure, and it requires care, not condemnation.”

    Read Also: une 12: Nigeria has made tremendous progress under Tinubu, says Aiyedatiwa

    The NDLEA reiterated its commitment to a balanced approach—combining aggressive enforcement against traffickers with increased focus on treatment, rehabilitation, and awareness campaigns.

    The highlight of the day was the unveiling of a documentary that vividly portrays the journey of individuals who have survived the grip of addiction. The film, developed with support from IRHDAA and Global Shout, illustrates the intersection of personal will, institutional help, and community support.

    From dark periods of dependence to moments of transformation, the documentary revealed how recovery is possible when addicts are embraced, not exiled. It drew tears from some in the audience and was met with a standing ovation.

    IRHDAA used the opportunity to reaffirm its dedication to offering resources for victims and families. Through its website and helpline, the organization connects individuals to counselling, rehabilitation centers, and family therapy support.

    “This is not a fight for law enforcement alone,” one panelist noted. “It’s a public health issue. It’s a family issue. It’s a community issue. Every layer of society must act.”

  • Saving Nigerians from drug addiction

    Saving Nigerians from drug addiction

    SIR: Opioids, once hailed as a miracle solution for pain management, have become a deadly curse for millions worldwide. What began as a legitimate prescription for pain relief has quickly spiralled into a devastating addiction, ruining lives and tearing families apart. The alarming rise of opioid abuse has sparked a national crisis, with Nigeria not immune from its destructive grasp.

    The journey from prescription to addiction often starts innocently enough. A patient is prescribed opioids for chronic pain, surgery recovery or injury. Initially, the medication provides welcome relief, allowing them to function normally. However, the body quickly builds tolerance, requiring higher doses to achieve the same effect. Before long, the individual finds themselves dependent on the drug, experiencing withdrawal symptoms when it’s not present.

    The slippery slope to addiction is slick: opioids activate the brain’s reward centres, releasing feel-good effects that create a sense of euphoria. This can lead to misuse as individuals begin taking more than their prescribed dose or using someone else’s medication.

    The consequences are dire: overdose, respiratory failure or even death.

    According to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), opioid-related overdoses have skyrocketed in Nigeria, with many cases involving young people. The agency has seized millions of opioid pills and arrested numerous traffickers, but the problem persists.

    Just recently, in one of its press releases, NDLEA reported a seizure of 1, 890 ampoules of fentanyl, a lethal synthetic opioid weighing 11.753 kg, from drug trafficking syndicates at the popular Idumota market in Lagos Island.

    Also, in previous years, there had been a series of seizures, significantly involving N5 billion worth of opioids in a warehouse in Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, with millions of pills and bottles seized and two kingpins arrested. All these drugs, if allowed into circulation, will cause grave damages ranging from changes in pupil size to clammy skin, cyanosis, coma and respiratory failure, which leads to death.

    So, what’s driving this crisis? Over-prescription by healthcare providers, lack of education on safe usage and the illegal drug trade all play a role. The internet has also made it alarmingly easy for individuals to access opioids without a prescription.

    Read Also: ‘How to help children with drug addiction’

    Breaking the cycle of addiction requires a multi-faceted approach. Healthcare providers must adopt more cautious prescribing practices, while patients must be educated on the risks and warning signs of addiction. Law enforcement agencies must continue to disrupt the illegal drug supply chain and support services must be available for those struggling with addiction.

    The opioid epidemic is a ticking time bomb, waiting to claim its next victim. By understanding the dangers of opioids and working together to address this crisis, we can prevent further devastation and help those already trapped in the grip of addiction find a path to recovery.

    In conclusion, the fight against drug abuse, particularly the opioid epidemic, requires a collective and decisive response from the government, healthcare providers, law enforcement agencies and the general public. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration must prioritise this critical issue and provide unwavering support to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and other stakeholders in the fight against drug abuse, like providing adequate funding for the NDLEA to enhance their operational capacity and effectiveness and strengthening legislation and enforcement to tackle drug trafficking and dealers.

    • Olufemi Fadahunsi, Ado-Ekiti.
  • ‘How to help children with drug addiction’

    ‘How to help children with drug addiction’

    A property developer and Managing Director of Mubdhab Homes Limited, Dr. Abubakar Salami, has advised parents of children suffering from drug abuse not to give up on them.

    Salami said such children could still stay out of addiction and become successful.

    He said only God can decide who is useless, adding that once someone with drug addiction takes personal decision to stop the bad habit, they could become useful in the society.

    Addressing reporters in Abuja, Salami said he was involved in substance abuse for about 12 years before he decided to stay out of the bad practice.

    The property developer also said he became diligent in his business and could share his success story for others to emulate.

    Advising parents of children with drug abuse, he said: “Don’t give up on your children suffering from substance abuse. Don’t lose hope. It’s like we say it’s an illness. Right? You would continue to find help and cure. Then another advice I have for parents is: make your house a shield.

    Read Also: Youth drug addiction

    “The first point that drives people into these things; it’s like a form of escape. So, what are the children, the young ones, trying to escape from? [It’s] Abuse from unconventional homes. So, many a time the parents have subconsciously driven their children into this lifestyle with their ways and lifestyle.

    “Just imagine: you come to the house and you’re beating your wife all the time and your child doesn’t like that sight. Your child goes to stay in the streets and he gets hooked.

    “You’re a father in absentia, you’re not always around. Your child finds solace in the streets, your child gets hooked. It’s mostly from the streets, right?

    “Now, if you build a proper home where there’s love, protection, shield around your children, your place of children, even when they go to school and they meet children from those unconventional homes, that love and that guidance will shield them.”

  • Youth drug addiction

    Youth drug addiction

    • This is a monster that must be tamed before it is too late

    Brigadier-General Buba Marwa, chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), tended to have painted a grim picture of the prevalence and effects of drug abuse among the youth and school children. He called the attention of participants at a sensitisation programme on the menace held in Abuja to the frightening dimension it has taken in the Nigerian society. While pointing out that drug use has ballooned among the youth, women, boys and even rural dwellers, he drew attention to the negative impact of the abuse on them, the prevalence of which experts have put at between 20 and 40 per cent.

    A study conducted among secondary school students in Oyo State indicated that more than 26 per cent of respondents had indulged in the use of illicit drugs. This calls for serious concern by students, teachers, religious and traditional leaders, as well as the government at all levels. The alarming rate at which substances such as tramadol, loud, molly, canabis, cocaine, among others, are being abused calls for concerted action by all segments of the society.

    The retired general linked the sorry development to the spate of insecurity in the land. Both General Marwa and researchers from the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) are agreed that violent crimes such as armed robbery, rape, banditry, kidnapping and murder draw their oxygen from hard drugs, and unless the supply is controlled, the society could go under.

    Every country looks to the younger generation for social development. They are the ones who populate the schools, carry out researches and to whom the future is handed over. When so many of them engage in drug abuse, the future is imperilled.

    It is the duty of government bodies such as the NDLEA to urgently work out means of curtailing the spread. In this, the agency has to work with women organisations, education authorities, security organisations, psychologists, sociologists, lawmakers and youth societies.

    The National Orientation Agency (NOA) established to ensure that national values and ethos are well planted in all citizens by robust use of the mass media, new media and other modes of communication in the modern age is almost moribund. It has not been able even to produce jingles and advertisements to be aired on radio and television stations for some time.

    Read Also: Drug addiction cost me a lot – Timaya

    It has become the more frightening when the spate of suicide among the youths, including students of higher institutions, has been linked to the reckless use of hard drugs. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has also linked this to the excruciating pains caused by economic hardship in the country. This calls for parental vigilance, regular counselling and acknowledgement of the role of the family in building and sustaining the society. The family, as a basic institution for grooming the young ones

    must be restored to its pristine position. When many families are as dysfunctional as they are today, parents are unable to play their roles in raising godly children. Many children today hardly know both parents, and the single parent, in a bid to raise resources to run the home, is left with no choice than run a rat race. The children are thus left to a househelp. There is no family value being passed from one generation to another. This calls for serious concern.

    Thus, the House of Representatives Committee on Justice has had to hold public hearing on how to save Nigerian children. The Speaker, Tajudeen Abass, and committee chairman, Olumide Osoba, expressed worry about the state of things and focused on the role the internet could play in further worsening the situation. The House is working on a bill to check the menace of the youth being hooked on the internet. How it hopes to get an act to cure the ill remains to be seen.

    It is however obvious that parents would still have to be aroused to their responsibility of caring for the children. It is not an easy task, but, as was the duty of winning the civil war and embarking on reintegration and reconstruction thereafter, it is one that must be undertaken and won.

  • Help! Drug addiction is growing

    With worrisome statistics that more and more of teenagers and youth are getting addicted to drugs, experts are calling for concerted efforts by the government to rid the nation of the scourge, writes FEMI OGUNSHOLA

    A new pandemic is raging and ravaging the active population of the nation – youths and experts are worried that the right attention is not yet drawn to it or strategies in place to arrest the scourge.

    Neuro-psychiatrists are raising the alarm that drugs and drug addiction have left even its traditional space and slipping into primary and secondary schools across the country.

    Checks revealed that in many public schools, even teenagers are becoming dangerously hooked to mind-bending drugs. They are therefore urging parents to be more involved in child-rearing and not leave the grooming of their children or wards to teachers.

    Dr Yusuf Misau, Department of Community Medicine, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, said addiction in whatever form has become a silent reality that Nigerians should worry about.

    He said that “drug abuse is a curse on the society because it comes at heavy cost with terrible implication on the individual and the community at large.

    Experts at a workshop on the dangers of drug abuse and addiction to national development decried the involvement of Nigerian youths in the deviant act.

    They blamed the prevalence of the act partly on poor parental upbringing and bad peer group influences, among others.

    Participants at a capacity building workshop, organised by Green Crescent Health Development, in collaboration with the International Federation of Green Crescent, were drawn from community-based non-governmental organisations.

    The theme of the workshop is: “Universal Addiction Advocacy Campaign Intervention.”

    The United Nations Office on Crime and Drugs (UNODC), listed cannabis sativa as the most abused drug in Nigeria, by youths between 20-29 years.

    Dr Mohammed Audi, the President of Green Crescent Health Development, stressed the need to support drug addiction prevention and also invest in the youths and other vulnerable population.

    The prevention campaign, according to him is aimed at promoting healthy behaviour.

    Audi said that keeping drug use prevalence low and continually reducing it remained the best prevention, noting that preventing harm from occurring in the most cost-effective.

    He also said drug policies must be “human rights-based, gender-sensitive and age-appropriate.’’

    Mr Khaleel Abdullahi, a legal practitioner, said drug problem is as old as man, noting that no society is immune to the negative consequences of illicit drugs.

    Read Also: Drug abuse: Killing Nigeria softly

    He, however, said the issue assumed worrisome dimensions at the end of the Second World War, following the return of some Nigerian soldiers from Burma and India.

    Abdullahi said some of the soldiers returned home with the seeds of the cannabis sativa which they experimented, and discovered it could grow well in some parts of the country.

    He noted that, with time, the cultivation of cannabis sativa became popular, while the consumption also expanded.

    He added that addiction, in all its ramifications remained the principal cause of low productivity, social vices, crimes, diseases, upheavals, suicide and political rascality especially in developing society.

    Abdullahi said that substance addiction, such as drugs and alcohol cause clinical and functional impairments and disability, which sometimes lead to failure to meet major responsibilities.

    According to him, behavioural addiction is what an individual learns over time and becomes part of such individual, which include gambling, playing cards, chess and ludo, among others.

    “Technological addiction is otherwise known as Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) is a new phenomenon, but already taking a new dimension in health practice.’’

    He noted that though alcohol addiction is part of substance addiction, Nigerian law permits the licensing of breweries and beer parlours.

    The only warning it gives according to the lawyer is, “Drink responsibly” or “Do not drink and drive.”

    He stated that technological addiction, according to Nigerian law, is yet to be regulated, the duration somebody stays online or on a particular site, or a site where a child should not visit.

    On gambling and other games of chance, he stated that Nigerian law is not discouraging gambling, but rather encourage it.

    According to him, Nigerian law does not frontally address tobacco addiction, even with the existence of the National Tobacco Control Act 2015.

    “Companies are only asked to advertise that smoking kills or the failed attempt that no one should smoke in public gatherings.’’

    The legal practitioner noted that these statements were too charitable, adding that the implementation of the act is required to address addiction.

    Abdullahi also said that the campaign on addiction prevention should be taken down to all strata of the society, especially schools where the leaders of tomorrow are being groomed.

    He called on government agencies entrusted with the mandate to fight addiction to live up to their responsibilities and ensure they recruit the right people for the jobs.

    “Whether chemical, behavioural or digital, is a scourge not only in the individual’s brain, but also on the vast majority of communities in Nigeria and the majority of concerned citizens crave to live in communities free from addiction and addiction-related harm.’’

    Dr Tajudeen Abiola of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Kaduna, called for a comprehensive community-wide action to curb the problem.

    He said the problem should be solved through an integrated and evidenced-based approach, adding that there must be community involvement.

    According to him, we are painfully aware of the destructive impact of alcohol, tobacco and gambling industries in the country.

    “We are deeply concerned about the emergence of online gaming, among others, that promote drug use and e-gaming for private profit, causing substantial harm, especially to the youths and vulnerable group.’’

    Mr Abdullahi Baba-Husseini, Assistant Comptroller General, Narcotics (National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), said the collective effort was the only panacea to addressing the challenges of substance abuse.

    He disclosed that no fewer than 14 per cent of Nigerians abuse different substances through addiction.

    He listed the substances mostly abused as Tramadol, Benylin with codeine, adding that a high percentage of women were involved in drug abuse.

    He said the agency has stepped up strategies to create awareness on drug abuse and its dangers, and called on state governments to include drug education in the school curriculum.

    He said with the inclusion of drug education in the school curriculum, young people would be aware of the dangers inherent in indiscriminate drug use.

    Baba-Husseini added that with rising population, the agency had low manpower to tackle the growing addiction, stressing that more partnership was needed to tackle drug addiction in the country.

    Ogunshola is of the News Agency of Nigeria