NAN-HG-8
Drugs
By Esenvosa Izah
Lagos, Jan. 26, 2017 (NAN) Dr Maruf Mustapha, a psychiatrist, says that at least seven per cent of Nigerians are addicted to illegal substances such as drugs that cause changes in social behaviour.
Mustapha, who works at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Thursday.
Referring to a 2009 to 2012 National Survey on Alcohol and Drug use in the country, the psychiatrist said that the alarming rate of drug abuse among Nigerians was gradually pushing the country to the brink of an epidemic.
Cue in audio 1 (Mustapha)
“The drug abuse problem in Nigeria has been ongoing, but gradually escalating situation wherein we find ourselves almost on the brink of an epidemic of drug abuse in the country.
“Several studies have been done as regards the epidemiology of the drug abuse; the fore-runner being the NASAD (National Survey on Alcohol and Drug) study done by the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Aro study group on drug addiction.
“And I think percentages of up to five to seven per cent of the population could be said to have had contact with an illicit psychoactive substance in the year before.
“Bringing it down to the local area which is Lagos at least 10 to 20 per cent of the patients seen on an out-patients base in the emergency here have either a primary drug problem or drug as part of their presenting.
“So, it is quite a very common and increasingly worrying trend.’’
Cue out audio 1
Mustapha told NAN that drug addiction posed a great danger to both the individual and the society because the indulgence was harmful to humanity.
He stated that most often drug addicts become a nuisance to society the moment the harmful substances begin to affect the body.
Cue in audio 2 (Mustapha)
“Drug addiction is a chemical hijacking of the executive functions of the brain; he, for example, may neglect other day-to-day pleasures, rather and put primacy on use of this substance and as such this progressively leads to neglect of other functions of the person including job neglect, neglect of personal hygiene, his significant others, the parents, the siblings, the wife and other people around him.
“This progressively goes on to where the person now goes on to criminal activities just to be able to get money to get these drugs.
“The direct health implication, most of these substances if not all in those quantities they are being abused and neuro-toxic, they have direct toxic effects on the brain.
“Wherein the brain starts to wither and die away and the person actually loses touch or contact with reality and goes into his full blown psychotic episode.’’
Cue out audio 2 (NAN)
EEI/ERO/OSA/YEE
Edited by Emmanuel Okara/Shittu Obassa/Emmanuel Yashim
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