Revealed - Kano State Is Nigeria’s Drug Abuse Hot Spot- NDLEA

In Nigeria, the abuse of all types of drugs has increased drastically over the past decade. The nation’s youth constitutes the group most at risk from serious problems associated with addiction. Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria, has the highest rate of drug abuse in the country according to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) figures for seizures of drugs, convictions of drug dealers and arrests of drug addicts.

In Kano State, 37% of the population are drug abusers. The NDLEA has warned of serious consequences to society if the task of destroying the culture of drug abuse and its supply chain does not immediately begin to bear fruit.

Saving a generation

Nigeria has made great progress in stemming the supply of drugs with high profile arrests of traffickers, seizures of drugs, the destruction of cannabis farms and closures of laboratories used for the clandestine manufacture of drugs. In 2013, 8,324 men and 529 women were investigated after being suspected of drug trafficking. Mrs Roli Bode George, the NDLEA Director General, said that her mission was to vigorously pursue the Agency’s vision of a drug-free society.

This is a problem that does not discriminate between rich and poor, old and young. Peer pressure is one of the major factors that need to be addressed in any effective programme aimed at controlling drug abuse, and mothers must realise that from a very early age children need to be watched carefully for deviant behaviour and be protected from the influence of older children involved with drugs.

A war on many fronts
The abuse of drugs is not confined to urban areas, and the NDLEA is working alongside the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the European Union (EU) to ensure that services to help addicts and users are also available in rural areas and are up to international standards.

Cannabis and Indian hemp are the most commonly abused drugs in Nigeria, although heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, ephedrine and ketamine are also brought in by the traffickers, and there is a range of products that are more easily obtained and are cheaper and not illegal, such as organic solvents, cough syrups and horse stimulants, all of which are unpredictable in their effects and can be highly dangerous. The so-called ‘bath salts’ contain the active ingredients methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDVP) and cathinone—the latter is a stimulant similar to amphetamine and which is also found in Khat.

Bath salts are sold as a synthetic hallucinogen, a cheaper substitute for cocaine or LSD and which can produce extreme paranoia and violence in the user. An essential part of the drug abuse problem is that people who want to take drugs as an escape for their lives will reach for whatever is available, ignoring the health risks.
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