The Director-General, National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Moji Adeyeye, has warned that the future of Nigeria depends largely on the nature and quality of youths that the country produces.
She warned further that a child that grew up under frustrating conditions would develop psychological problems with time and possibly become dangerous as an adult.
Speaking at the maiden Annual National Security Summit in Abuja with the theme “COVID-19, Drug abuse, mental health: Implications to national security,” she noted with dismay that conditions related to the pandemic are known to have increased economic deprivation and feelings of social isolation which are factors that can contribute to increased drug use.
Adeyeye, who was represented by NAFDAC’s Director of Narcotics and Controlled Substances, Dr Musa Umar, said the topic was apt and in line with national and international realities.
According to her, drug abuse is a health and a social problem, stressing that tackling the menace required a balanced approach touching on aspects related to the complex relationship between lack of opportunities, drug abuse, mental health, and national security.
“Security has gone beyond the notion of the physical safety and survival of a state from internal or external threats to include all the interlocking realms of economic self-reliance, social cohesion, and political stability. It borders on how people would live a long and healthy life.
“Human development is about enlarging people’s choices to live a long and healthy life, to acquire knowledge and to have access to resources needed for a decent standard of living (UNDP, 1990:10). In the absence of these essential choices many other opportunities remain inaccessible on a sustainable basis,” she said.
The NAFDAC boss pointed out that human development has always followed security of lives and property, which was the reason why those who drafted our constitution made security the number one responsibility the state must discharge towards its citizens.
She added that lack of opportunities, inequality, poverty, and mental health conditions are known factors that push people into drug use, stressing that the Illicit drug economies in poor and marginalised urban neighbourhoods is often driven by poverty.
The NAFDAC DG explained that the non-medical use of prescription drugs (e.g., opioids and benzodiazepines) and the use of amphetamines or new psychoactive substances in lieu of or in combination with drugs such as cocaine or heroin blurs the distinction between users of a particular substance and presents a picture of interlinked epidemics of drug use and related health consequences.
