Anti-Substance Abuse War: Why we need a new approach
From Fentanyl to Codeine, Tramadol, Colorado, Molly, Cocaine, methamphetamine or meth/Ice known locally as mkpuri mriri, ‘gutter water’ (a mix of codeine, tramadol, Rohypnol, cannabis and water or juice) etc., everywhere you turn in Nigeria, there are opioid drugs available at different rates and sizes depending on the size of your pocket.
53.7% of Nigeria’s population is aged 15 to 65, and 14.3 million Nigerians aged between 15 and 64 years use drugs – a 2018 National Drug Use Survey released by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) also says at least 31 million people worldwide suffer from drug use disorders.
The prevalence of drug use disorders is highest in people in their 20s. According to reports published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, roughly 50% of individuals with severe mental disorders are affected by substance abuse. 37% of alcohol abusers and 53% of drug abusers also have at least one serious mental illness. The management of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, in Lagos also said 80% of patients at the facility are drug patients.
But there are no data on young people whose dreams have been shattered, high-flying professionals who lost their careers, and children sent to foster care by this epidemic.
Why are young Nigerians getting hooked on drug overdose and how do we get them to say No?
In my series of interactions with young drug users and former users, I realised that peer pressure and pop culture top the list of factors responsible for drug usage among young people. Some said it gives them confidence, others who are actively into internet fraud said using meth/ice helps them to stay up all night to ‘work’ because internet fraud is, to a very large extent, a nocturnal ‘business’.
While some have been able to get off the hook and reclaim their lives, many others have not been lucky.
In July 2020, while posing as a drug user, I visited a community in Amuwo-Odofin local government area of Lagos where cocaine and ‘ice’ are sold openly. With as little as N500, I was offered crack cocaine and meth.
Although the Nigerian Drugs Law Enforcement is doing a lot to clamp down on the circulation of drugs, and the war has taken a new dimension since 2021, it is not enough.
In November 2021, a Nigerian lawmaker, Henry Nwawuba, raised a motion on the floor of the House of Representatives on the urgent need to sensitise Nigerians on the deadly effect of Crystal Meth.
Organisations and individuals are now coming to the reality of the need to join the war. But what is the strategy of warfare and how potent is it to get yung people off the hook of substance abuse.
I found the approach of the MTN Foundation a worthy template.
Since it launched the Anti-Substance Abuse Programme (MTN ASAP) in 2019, the foundation has been dedicated to engaging, informing and educating millions of young people on the menace of substance abuse as part of a plan towards creating a drug-free nation, through sensitisation, advocacy walks, training and frank conversations.
The Foundation’s approach is aimed at discouraging young people from giving drug a trial. When there’s no first time, there would be no history of drug use.
“We are not strangers to the scourge of substance abuse in our nation, and we felt it was important to lend our voices to this fight because it’s everyone’s fight, and here we are four years after the ASAP campaign was launched. We launched a few programmes, including a quiz competition because the youth are central to the fight against drug abuse,” Odunayo Sanya, the Executive Secretary of MTN Foundation said at the finale of the ASAP Quiz completion in June 2023.
Through the MTN ASAP Unplugged Prevention Programme, the Foundation educates school teachers across Nigeria’s six geo-political zones on the right decisions to make when it comes to drug use the school-based drug prevention programme in a way that empowers the children. The teachers then become anti-substance abuse advocates, who train their students and other teachers upon completion of the programme.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime also bears testament to how the MTN ASAP Unplugged Prevention Programme has improved the knowledge of 80% of the teachers involved in the programme coordinated yearly to educate teachers and students on the right decisions to make when it comes to drug use.
“MTN ASAP Unplugged Prevention Programme has improved the knowledge of 80% of the teachers involved in the programme coordinated yearly to educate teachers and students on the right decisions to make when it comes to drug use,” Folusho Ajayi-Adelekan, UNODC’s National Programme Officer, recently said in Abuja.
While the MTN Foundation is taking a more subtle approach to fighting the epidemic, youths in Oba, Anambra state, are doing it violently through corporal punishment. I doubt if the approach will be able to solve the crisis.
For a generation hooked to substance abuse, getting young people to say no to substance cannot be achieved violently, it must start from the early stages – ‘catching them young’ and discouraging them from giving it a trial. And this is not a fight that should be left to MTN Foundation and other stakeholders, it’s everyone’s fight.
