By: Mayen Etim
KADUNA, North-West, Nigeria – The Director-General of Kaduna State Bureau For Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment, (KADBUSA), Dr. Joseph Maigari, has said prevention is always better and cheaper than cure when it comes to the fight against menace of drug abuse.
He stated this during a sensitization campaign on War Against DAASA and Save the Future Leaders from drug abuse organized by a Non-Governmental Organization, The Eye Opener Youth/Women Foundation in Kaduna on Saturday.
According to him, hitherto the intervention on substance abuse in the State has been centered on disrupting supplies in terms of people who bring in these substances, hence, when one is got smoking he/she is first taken to the police station.
The KADBUSA boss disclosed that the Kaduna state Government is addressing the problem of substance abuse from another angle: the demand side of the problem, where it is educating the people, gives them information so that they won’t indulged in substance abuse in the first place.
He added that but for those citizens who unfortunately are already in the habit, they are given treatment. He said that it is for this reason the State Government is establishing four Rehabilitation Centres across the state to cater for this category of people and to also arrest the problem.
On the way forward, Dr. Maigari said; “The fight against the menace of drug abuse is a holistic approach from the biological side, to the psychological front and the social aspect. On the social aspect, there is a wide range of interventions that we can put up to be able to address the problem.
“Of course skills acquisition is very important for people to have so they can engage themselves positively to become useful to the society to enable them avoid substances which eventually brings destruction to them and eventually to others,” he said.
Also, Dr Ibrahim Baba of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA), Kaduna State Command, said the causes of drug abuse cannot be pin down to one particular thing.
He said despite the economic and social situations among others, it is basically ignorance; adding that part of the fight is what The Eye Opener Youth/Women Foundation is doing today through campaigns to enlighten the people of Makera Community in Kaduna South.
“Once the people are enlightened and given information on the dangers and consequences of drug abuse they may not get involved in it,” he said.
Dr Baba further disclosed that the United Nations Office for Drug and Crimes,(UNODC), has been part and parcel of the NDLEA operational activities, and has been training it staff.
He said the Drug Demand Reduction Unit also has been given lots of trainings by UNODC on how the challenges of treatment and rehabilitation should be done to ensure Nigeria meets the international standard.
Earlier, President and Founder of The Eye Opener Youth/Women Foundation, Mrs. Margaret Julius, said her Foundation is set to reach out to helpless, confused, visionless, rejected and destitute youth and women in the community by creating awareness, teaching, sensitization, reformation and empowering programmes for them so that they could become who they ought to be.
According to her, children and youth are said to be leaders of tomorrow meaning one could predict the future of a community, state or a nation by looking at the common activities of her youth.
She added that her Foundation will clear out this epidemic within a period of two years in any community that gives it full support because; “We know and have the right weapon to fight the good fight.”