The public relations officer of the National Drug Enforcement Agency (NDEA) and the officer commanding prosecution, Assistant Superintendent Abdoulie Ceesay, has said that there is a considerable reduction in the number of drugs-related offences in the country.
This, he added, was as a result of the agency’s intensified crackdown against drug users and peddlers.
ASP Abdoulie Ceesay was speaking in an exclusive interview with this paper yesterday at the NDEA main office at Kairaba Avenuein the Kanifing Municipality.
in the Kanifing Municipality.“Drugs and its related offences are getting reduced day by day,” he noted, adding that NDEA, as the agency mandated to fight against the menace, would continue the fight until the country is free from drugs and its related offences.
NDEA’s PRO further stated that as far as drugs-related acts are concerned, regardless of the quantity, anybody who is caught with cannabis sativa would face the full force of the law.
He pointed out that the law has made it clear to everybody that drugs are prohibited substances, noting that the law says anybody who is caught with cannabis of more than 2 kilos would be charged with possession of cannabis for the purpose of trafficking.
“The drugs Act made it clear that it is prohibited in law, so everybody should avoid it,” the PRO declared.
He pointed out that what prevails now and before are totally different
“Before you can find a group of boys sitting in the street smoking cannabis the whole day, and nobody is there to tell them that it is prohibited in the eyes of the law; but now things are different, as most people are now aware of the NDEA crusade against drug traffickers,” he said, adding that the agency would leave no stone unturned in the fight against drugs.
ASP Ceesay further noted that the agency is always advocating that landlords must not allow any group or individual to use their compounds as a drugs-pushing centre or selling point, as this could lead to their compounds being forfeited to the state.
“I think the landlords and the general public are responding very well in that area, though there are some bad elements that are still not adhering to our calls. They are still dealing with the illegal substances,” he stated, adding that the long arm of the law would one day catch up with them, and they would face the penalty.
He said the NDEA alone cannot do it and, therefore, needs the intervention of the general public in the fight against the drugs menace and its related offences.
