The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration
and Control (NAFDAC) at the weekend raised the alarm over the high rate and
prevalence of drug addicts in the country.
The agency noted that Nigeria is leading in the
five percent international coverage of drug abuse globally, lamenting that the
country currently has 15 percent drug abuse rate.
The Director of Public Affairs, NAFDAC, Dr.
Abubakar Ateiza Jimoh, made this revelation during a chat with journalists in
Ilorin, Kwara State.
Jimoh said the agency has an average conservative
estimate of about 15 million people who are on drugs and three million of them
can be conveniently called drug addicts.
This development, he said, had made the agency to
conclude that the high level of violence, kidnapping, terrorism, armed robbery and even dangerous
driving by some drivers are as a result of the high rate of drug abuse by some
Nigerians.
He said most youths under the age bracket of 19 and
22 and even parents-both males and females-have seriously engaged in taken hard
concoctions different from the common cocaine and heroin which names could not
be ascertained imported into the country from other African countries.
The NAFDAC director, who is also a member of the
28-man Presidential Advisory Committee on Elimination of Drug Abuse headed by
General Buba Marwa, said the committee had held series of dialogue sessions
with various stakeholders on how to reduce, eradicate, if not, totally
eliminate drug abuse in the country.
He said the committee would submit its findings and
recommendations to the federal government next month for implementation.
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