WAHO: Nigeria, Other West African Countries Battling Illicit Drug Abuse

Michael Olugbode

West Africa Health Organisation (WAHO) has decried the ‘serious’ problem of illicit drug abuse in countries in African.The organisation raised the alarm that in West Africa and elsewhere on the Africa continent “there is now a codeine epidemic among the youths; the tramadol crowd, even as many engage in a voyage of discovery with various agents like diazepam, chlorpromazine, and other different inhalants.”

Speaking yesterday at the launch of the 2018-2019 West African Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (WENDU) Report of Statistics and Trends on Illicit Drug Supply and Drug Use, the Director-General of WAHO, Prof Stanley Okolo, said cannabis also remains the most available drug in the region “as it is easy to grow in the climate, and cheaper than cocaine and heroin.”

He said the reported prevalence rates of the drug which stands at 5.2 percent for West Africa and 13.5 percent for Central Africa are very high indeed.

Okolo said: “The public health and socio-economic consequences of this worrying scenario of illicit drug use in our region are now evident in our societies. Drug dependence, mental health issues, suicide rates, and gratuitous violence often associated with security incidents are now widespread in our region. This drugs habit feeds off the high rates of trafficking of illicit drugs and trafficking of fake and falsified medicinal products estimated at 20 to 40 percent in our region, whilst at the same time creating a demand base for such trafficking, resulting in a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.”

He said the need for action was more urgent now than ever as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the severe inadequacies in the health systems with a misalignment of disease burden, poverty, and population boom on one side and healthcare expenditure and investment on the other, noting that traffickers of illicit and falsified products know the market well and will always target medications in high demand.

Okolo revealed that: “Their thriving business will often target antibiotics, anti-malarial drugs, pain killers, anti-hypertensives, anti-diabetic agents, and even life-saving cardiac medicines, leading to serious injury and deaths.”

Meanwhile, the Chairman and Chief Executive of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brigadier General Buba Marwa (rtd), who was the launcher of the report, said the use of credible data is essential in the fight against drug abuse, warning that the number of people using illicit drugs in Africa might rise by 40 percent in 2030.

Marwa, while speaking during the teleconference launch, expressed Nigeria’s preparedness to continue to provide credible data to sustain the fight against drug abuse.

According to him, “The misuse of psychoactive substances such as alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine as well as prescription medications exert tremendous toll on the individual, families, communities and societies. Substance use has impacted negatively on public health, causing injuries, loss of income and productivity, family and community dysfunction and even death.

“Drug use around the world has been on the increase in terms of the overall number as well as the proportion of the world’s population that use drugs. The continuous increase in the types of new psychoactive substances being discovered globally is also worrisome. According to the World Drug Report 2020, in 2018, an estimated 269 million people representing 5.3 percent of the global population was reported to have used drugs as against 210 million in 2009 representing 4.8 percent.”

He added that: “The West Africa sub-region is in the lime light at the international scene because of its role as a transit hub for cocaine from South America and heroin from eastern Asia to Europe as well as its heightened tramadol, codeine and cannabis use.

“Furthermore, going by the projection of demographic factors, by 2030, the number of people that would be using drugs is expected to rise by 11 percent around the world and as much as 40 percent in Africa alone. The role of credible data in addressing the world drug problem cannot be over emphasised.”

While assuring that Nigeria will continue to play its role to support the sustainability of WENDU by continuously providing credible data through its National Sentinel Network, the Nigerian Epidemiological Network on Drug Use (NENDU), Marwa urged “all ECOWAS member states to employ this well-articulated report for informed policy formulation, programming and monitoring of our interventions in the ECOWAS sub-region for better outcome in our drug control efforts.”