substance and drug abuse
Chapter one
Introduction
1.1 Back ground of the study
Unpleasant youthful activities are widespread in Nigeria and all over Africa, to the extent that they have been giving a lot of concern to the government and general public. In secondary schools and most Nigerian universities, the activities of drug addicts are known to have been source of threat to lives and property. (Aluede 2000).
The impact of substance abuse among Nigerian youths has been a hallmark of a morally bankrupt, decadent and wasted generation and loss of our societal values and ideals. The situation now appears to be such that no one can claim ignorance of what is happening. We cannot sit on the fence and criminally pretend on the menace of drug abuse among our young people.
Little wonder, then that the immediate past UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan once said “Drugs are tearing apart our societies, spawning crime, spreading diseases such as AIDS, and killing our youths and our future”. Nigeria has a population in excess of 170 million people (NPC 2012) which makes her the most populated country in Africa. Over one third of her population is made up of young people between the ages of 10 – 24 years. The period of adolescence is between 10 -19 years while youth years is between 15 – 24 years ( UNFPA 2004) .
According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Report (2005), some 200 million people, or 5percent of the world’s population aged 15- 64 have used drugs at least once in the last 12 months – 15 million more than the previous year’s estimate. Likewise, according to the World Drug Report (2005), the use of illicit drugs in all nations has increased in recent years. The report goes on to note that the increasing availability of a variety of drugs to an ever widening socio-economic spectrum of consumers is disconcerting, although the main problem at the global level continues to be opiates (notably heroine) followed by cocaine. For most of Europe and Asia, opiates
Introduction
1.1 Back ground of the study
Unpleasant youthful activities are widespread in Nigeria and all over Africa, to the extent that they have been giving a lot of concern to the government and general public. In secondary schools and most Nigerian universities, the activities of drug addicts are known to have been source of threat to lives and property. (Aluede 2000).
The impact of substance abuse among Nigerian youths has been a hallmark of a morally bankrupt, decadent and wasted generation and loss of our societal values and ideals. The situation now appears to be such that no one can claim ignorance of what is happening. We cannot sit on the fence and criminally pretend on the menace of drug abuse among our young people.
Little wonder, then that the immediate past UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan once said “Drugs are tearing apart our societies, spawning crime, spreading diseases such as AIDS, and killing our youths and our future”. Nigeria has a population in excess of 170 million people (NPC 2012) which makes her the most populated country in Africa. Over one third of her population is made up of young people between the ages of 10 – 24 years. The period of adolescence is between 10 -19 years while youth years is between 15 – 24 years ( UNFPA 2004) .
According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Report (2005), some 200 million people, or 5percent of the world’s population aged 15- 64 have used drugs at least once in the last 12 months – 15 million more than the previous year’s estimate. Likewise, according to the World Drug Report (2005), the use of illicit drugs in all nations has increased in recent years. The report goes on to note that the increasing availability of a variety of drugs to an ever widening socio-economic spectrum of consumers is disconcerting, although the main problem at the global level continues to be opiates (notably heroine) followed by cocaine. For most of Europe and Asia, opiates