Drug abuse has become a matter of constant discussion n the radio, television and in the daily newspapers recently. The menace of drug abuse in our country has reached a frightening proportion and it has pervaded every sector of our society. Drugs, which are made from medicinal substance formulated by pharmacists for the cure of the people's ailments, is used wrongly and abused by people across the social strata. A lot of people just walk across to the nearby chemist to their houses to buy drugs which are not prescribed for them by a pharmacist or a doctor, thus abusing the drugs. There are lots of dangers in drug abuse. In fact, many families have endangered the lives of their members through self medication. There are cases of many small children who lost their lives simply because their parents, out of ignorance, purchased drugs from chemists and even in the common markets without any doctor's prescription and administered such drugs on their children. In our society nowadays, it is common to see young children with one deformity or the other. This is so because many pregnant women abuse drugs easily.
They simply buy drugs and use them without doctor's prescription during pregnancy. The resultant effect of this ignorant act is that most babies are born with one deformity or the other. Drug abuse also leads to the several psychiatric cases we have around the country. Several youths take drugs such as heroine, cocaine, Indian hemp which affect their brain. They take these drugs ostensibly because they want to be in fashion and they want to be daring and bold. Consequently, most of them constitute themselves into nuisance to the society and end up in psychiatric hospitals. Our national prestige and honor are not spared of the gruesome effect of the social malaise called drug abuse. Many Nigerians traveling abroad are subjected to derogatory search at the points of entry into other countries. This has destroyed our international image as many Nigerians are found to be carriers and couriers of these hard drugs.
Many crimes in the country can be linked to drug abuse. The high rate of criminal activities is a pointer to the danger inherent in drug abuse. Armed robbers and the likes operate under the influence of drugs which make them to be so daring and ruthless in their nefarious activities. It is certain that drug abuse has posed a lot of dangers on our society and the government has to do something about it. Our people need to be enlightened about the dangerous consequences of drug abuse. Mass enlightenment campaign should be organized by the government. In addition, the government should promulgate a law which forbids the sale of drugs in the common open market and there should also be a law which forbids a chemist from selling drugs to the public without prescription paper from a doctor or a pharmacist. Religious bodies also have a role to play in educating the public about the dangers of drug abuse.
