Drug abuse: Group urges parents, teachers to get closer to wards

THE Useful Youth Vision Concept (UYVC), an NGO, has urged parents and teachers to get closer to their wards to ensure they are not influenced by friends and peers indulging in drug abuse.

The President of the Organisation, Mrs Adetokunbo Shonibare, made the call in a telephone Interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.

Shonibare said all hands must be on deck to tackle the menace of drug abuse among the youth.
She said her organisation would soon hold a sensitisation campaign against the use of prohibited substances by youths in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

NAN reports that some youths mix grey hair with marijuana and consume the mixture.

Shonibare said the trend had become worrisome and called for immediate action, adding that the organisation would ensure it was brought to its barest minimum.

ALSO READ: NAFDAC raids Lagos warehouse, confiscates N60m fake products

She said the organisation had conducted several campaigns against the dangers of drug abuse and urged the Nigerian Youth to shun the act.

She also said most youths were not aware of the truth about drugs, “Drugs are essentially poisons. The amount taken determines the effect.

“A small amount acts as a stimulant, that is, it speeds you up. A greater amount act as a sedative, which slows you down. Larger amount poisons and can kill.

“Drugs block off all sensations, the desirable ones with the unwanted. They also wipe out ability, alertness and muddle up one’s thinking.”

The president of the organisation noted that some drugs now being subjected to abuse were intended to speed up, slow down or change something about the way one’s body works.

“If you do not use prescribed medicine as they are supposed to be used, it can be as dangerous as illegal drugs.

“Youths take drugs because they want to change something in their lives.

“Most youths use drugs to fit in, escape or relax, to experiment and even to rebel.

“They think drugs provide solutions but eventually, the drugs become the problem,” she said.