The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has called on the Edo Government to organise enlightenment programme to tackle drug abuse in the state.
The state Chairman of the association, Dr Valentine Omoifo, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Benin.
Omoifo said that the drugs people abused are categorised as drugs in the medical aspects and illicit drugs.
“People abuse medical drugs in the sense that they just take drugs without the doctor’s prescription and without even taking the right dose of the drugs.
“In this part of the country, people take drugs indiscriminately; the pharmacies just sell drugs to anyone that comes to buy, because they want money.
“Some people now take medical drugs to also get high, blending medical and illicit drug abuse together,” he said.
According to him, people have access to medications in Nigeria unnecessarily, adding that the laws of selling drugs in the country are not well structured.
“Even in buses people just sell drugs, on the streets people sell drugs and also hawking drugs in the market.
“People who abuse drugs are prone to a lot of diseases. When a person abuse drugs and he or she wants to take it for the right purpose of curing a sickness, it will no longer work.
“Over dosage of drugs destroys the central nervous system.
“Drug abuse affects in terms of finance, crime rate, social disorder, mental rate of some students and also affecting the whole sector of our society,” he said.
Omoifo said that most times some doctors do not tell their patients the kind of drugs he or she is prescribing.
He said that some patients also prescribed the same drugs for a particular ailment which might be unknown to them.
He therefore urged the state government to provide a regulation or law about buying and selling drugs in the state.
“Some people take drugs for pains and coughs using them indiscriminately for other purposes, because they have access to these drugs at anytime or cost,” he said.
He advised youths to desist from taking drugs indiscriminately, warning that drug abuse will eventually lead to death. (NAN)