(Issue Monday June 27, 2016)
The
Gambia, through government agencies and departments such as the National Drug
Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), the Directorate of Health Promotion and
Education and the National Youth Council, is vigorously planning to commemorate
International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking, or simply
called World Drug Day.
As
the day is prepared for in earnest, records, as stated by the NDLEA, have shown
that about 1,502 people, mainly youths, were arrested and detained between 2012
and 2016 in The Gambia.
This
situation is seriously alarming and a cause for concern, especially that it has
been established by the relevant authorities that most of those involved in
drug abuse and illicit trafficking of drugs are the young people (teenagers) of
our society.
“One
thousand five hundred and two youths have been involved and detained in drug
trafficking within four years from 2012 to 2016, mostly teenagers at the age of
thirteen,” the NDLEA publicity relations officer has said.
He
has disclosed that 210 million youths across the world have however been found
involved in drug trafficking and 20,000 die annually due to health
complications caused by the abuse of drugs.
Considering
the population of our nation it should really be worrying having such a huge
number of people nabbed in drug-abuse offences over a four-year period.
This
really calls for more concerted efforts at reversing such a negative and
destructive trend.
Just
as the NDLEA and its partner institutions have said, the battle to discourage
substance abuse should be fought by all and sundry, as the parents, teachers,
religious leaders, chiefs and village elders, the government and the security
apparatus are all part and parcel of the fight against drug abuse and illicit
drug trafficking in this country.
The
youth – the cream and future of our nation – are at stake in this crusade.
Their health and productive life is being destroyed as they take into drugs and
become addicted, since drug addiction destroys lives, tears apart families and
harms society.
Drug
abuse affects the growth of their health, their educational progress and their
brains leading them mostly to a state of hallucination and schizophrenia, and
finally madness.
It
also increases the country’s health bill as people affected by drugs end up at
the health centres and hospitals across the country.
In
such a situation the country continues to lose its healthy labour force and
potential skilled workers to drug abuse. National productivity will continue to
be on the wane and the economy of the nation suffers gravely as drug abuse and
drug trafficking continue to take its toll on our people, especially the youth.
Substance
abuse, it should be noted, is a disease which doesn’t go away overnight. We
therefore have to work hard to overcome it.
So as a nation we should not take lightly the issue of drug abuse. It aggravates poverty as poverty and joblessness ‘complements’ it.
“Drug
addiction is not a choice of lifestyle, it is a disorder of the brain and we need
to recognize this.”
Anonymous
