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DRUG ABUSE – AN AID THAT DESTROYS FAMILIES AND NATIONS

Concept of Drug

Drug is any substance that is  swallowed through oesophagus, sniffed in through the nose, inserted via the anus or injected through the skin for purposeful effectiveness in the brain or body of the user in  order to achieve either negative or positive results. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (473) defines drug as an illegal substance that some people smoke, inject etc. for the physical and mental it has.

Abuse, on the other hand, is the use of something in a way that it is wrong or harmful, to make bad use of something, or to use so much of something that harms your health (AOALD 6). Categorically speaking, Mansur Ali (1) refers to drug as intoxicant (Khamr) exactly the way the Glorious Qur’an refers to it as an instrument of Shaitan, then Shaitan must always be avoided by the Gog-fearing beings, for avoiding it links up with success and or prosperity (Q5:90).

Pensioners...Maina yanked from saving them

Sabitha Marican (55) purported that Islam prohibits the ingestion of khamr, which is any substance that intoxicates in whatever form, or whatever name it may appear. Khamr, according to Yusuf Al-Qardawi in islamonline stated that the definition of Khamr extends to any substance that intoxicates.

NDLEA in Abdullahi (8) refers to drug as a substance other than food, water or air that is intentionally applied to or taken into the body in order to produce an effect on the body or mind. By this concepts drug actually depicts its effects on the consumers, and sometimes negatively affects people around the druggies and causes havoc, despairs, sadness, trouble, insomnia, mental derail and other deviant behaviours.

Agents of drug abuse

Nothing just happens without a cause. As many as drug abusers are, so many are the agents also.

  • Home: Children and wards tend to learn from parents through observation and emulation. It is extremely incumbent on every parent, to be keenly responsible and be cognisant of how they behave generally, and particularly at the presence of their children. What kind of a parent can we call a father who sends his child to buy him condom? The same goes for a parent who sends his or her child to purchase some sticks of cigarettes and instructs the child, to get it lightened as he returns! Charity, they say, begins at home.
  • Peer/school: When children go away from their home environment, they are sometimes influenced by their class or school mates. They, as they belong to clubs, may be introduced to drugs such as: Marijuana (India hemp), opium,over dose of B coden, cocaine, heroin, Tramol etc. In order to feel belong, many youth haven into the group of drug addict.
  • Neighbour/environment: Environment remains agent of civilisation of which negativism and positivism learnt, either directly or indirectly. If a family lives in an environment where hoodlums and thugs smoke, sniff and drink intoxicant, there is every likelihood that others may follow the suit.
  • Government: Obviously, responsible government will always remain mean and strict concerning drug abuse and addiction because its consequential negative results that it may have on the individual that are druggies and the innocent members of the community where they reside. Drug addiction may result in the destruction of the family.

Causes of drug addiction (68-70): According to Haladu, causes of drug abuse, among many others are: (1) lack of parental supervision. Children need a lot of constant monitoring in order not to wayward and so as not to derail from the norms of the society. (2)Peer group influence, personality problems due to socio-Economic conditions. Here, poverty   plays a great role due to unemployment and underemployment that prompted many people including youths to become idle and idleness pushes them to committing the crime of drug abuse. To them, it is a way of wiling away their time and a systemic way of temporarily forgetting their sorrow. (3) Availability of drug. In other developed countries, for example, Saudi-Arabia, United Arab Emirate, Ethiopia and many others will never sell drugs without the doctor’s or pharmacist’s prescription. Nigeria’s pharmaceutical shops are so cheaply involved in selling drugs even to children of seven years of age!

Pensioners...Maina yanked from saving them

Other causes according to Abdullahi (15) are: curiosity, prevention of failure, giving of satisfaction, the mass media, ignorance and negligence of its consequences, emotional and psychological stress, influence of boyfriends and girlfriends, pleasant at its trial, giving confidence and boldness, political thuggery, to pass examinations and to avoid. Sleeping.

Effects of drug abuse The following are known to be the dangerous effects of drug abuse:

Mental retardation, poverty, care-free attitude, fomenting trouble, aiding and abetting, heath related issues e.g. Liver cirrhosis, peptic ulcer, hypertension, deficiency in growth and lunatics, amongst many other health challenges. Domestic violence is a common effect of drug abuse which has resulted to separation of marriage, divorce instances, truancy from school by the children of divorce, living the life of a single father and mother, becoming permanent political thugs and miscreants, joining bad groups such as cultism, buglers, robbers etc.

The Tinubus with the late Jide Tinubu in the middle

Solution:

(1) Government needs to regulate the method of buying and selling of drugs in Nigeria;

(2) Parents must intensify their efforts of monitoring exercises on their children on the types of friend they keep, when, where and how they go out and return home;

(3) Impromptu visits should be paid to children in secondary schools, and also those in the university;

(4) Good cultural teachings that are not contrary to the real religious teachings should be taught and practically applicable at home;

(5) It should be reechoed here that Paradise isn’t free, one has to assiduously work to earn it; even though Hell fire isn’t. It is therefore, a useless exercise, if one, having lived this world, later finds himself in Hell fire. What do think?

 

         

 

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