Drug abuse will destroy you, reject you, reduce and kill you if you ain't lucky. It is not a prayer or curse, but a promise and fact.#Askthosewhosurvivedit.
June 2016, I went into a pharmaceutical store somewhere at Garki, Abuja to paracetamol tablets for my brother who had visited me. On entering, I saw a mid-age man who came to buy drug too. On entering, our eyes met, then he started coughing, and asked for a particular cough syrup. The way he coughed, I knew something was a wrong-forced cough.
Immediately he left, my brother Bello Kunle KUNLE burst laughing that it was fake jo, he bought the syrup to abuse it.Laas, we stepped out and saw the bottle and the pack on the floor just at the car park. The 'sick man' had finished it at a gulp. #Drugabuse.
Abuja, Kaduna and Kano residents would understand my short story better. It is a common occurrence in these places. Of course, that night we went to few 'hangouts to see farther anything we wanted to about drug abuse, and we saw things with our mouth wide open. The irony is that it is very common among young people and surprisingly ladies. Following day, I put a call through to my lovely bro Yinka Afolabi and sister Oyelese Adeola to investigate same in two different parts of Lagos, especially in my area-Lagos island. Again, same story, the same category of people but also in nettle bit difference in the source of drug abuse.
In Lagos- the young but lost are hooked on hemp, not Indian hemp but Naija, Shisha, cracks, heroin, cigarette few on cough syrups and 'Ref or Rev'.
In Abuja, Kaduna, and Kano it is a mix depending on your pocket power. From cocaine, heroin, Shisha, Cough syrups, Hemp, Rubber (yes, same rubber you know), cigarette and sanitary odour from the soak-away tank. Etc.
I have seen all other of people whose lives have been shattered by drugs in my place of Birth-Lagos island (Oju ina, Ona-la are typical examples). I have seen it Zaria and handed over the boy to security agents while I was in school and I have been the area with the largest plantation of hemp in West Africa here in Nigeria and I worked among them for more than a year. The ripple effects are devastating, but unfortunately creepingly moving unnoticed.
Abuse of drugs like codeine and others is on the rise, especially among young northern ladies and married women and mid age men in worked snow the North. It is now disturbing because this used to be a problem of the south mostly before now. Its now common to see young ladies in Abuja and the two States mentioned earlier holding a bottle of plastic coke mixed with Tutolin, a codeine-containing cough syrup.Not all coke holding people do this please.lol. And this is common in most parts of the North as well. The reason for this from my researches is that cough syrups that contain codeine – an opiate used to treat pain – is believed erroneously to enhance their sexual appetite.
The attendant problem of this is: it would lead to increase in crime, increasing rate of divorce and break of relationship. It would lead to increased health challenges and gradual dislocation of future man power etc. We all have a stake in preventing this calamity and safeguard our collective future.The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) must embark on more awareness, care, and support programs. Schools must integrate drug abuse and other vices in its curriculum, community and family must rise up to raise awareness, destroy locations or 'joints' where abuse is rampant and government must spend more on rehabilitation, care and support, as well prosecution of all chains involved in the illicit distribution and usage of drugs.
Together, we can make a difference. GOD BLESS NIGERIA.
Thanks to my research team
Yinka Afolabi
Oyelese Adeola
Fatoki Kenny
Bello Kunle
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