THE NATIONAL Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has called for stiffer penalties for drug offenders.
The agency said fines were no longer working as drug offenders would easily pay them and return to their business.
Chairman of the agency Buba Marwa said this on Monday during the Institute of Change Management’s annual dinner in Lagos.
He was represented by the Director of Seaport Operation Omolade Faboyede, who spoke on the theme, ‘Drug abuse in Nigeria: Changing the narrative.’
“It is worrisome that we have some of our officers lost their lives in the course of battling with drug traffickers. But at the end of the day, some of these offenders are just fined when taken to court, and they later return to the same business.”
He said the drug trend was worrisome, but the agency was doing a lot to make the punishment stiffer.
“As chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee for the Elimination of Drug Abuse, I have a clear view of the situation and what should be done to reverse the trend.
“We have to shut down the pipeline. That is, take the traffickers and their barons out of the picture. We have to embark on an aggressive drug supply reduction campaign.”
He noted that the National Drug Use Survey 2018 indicated that 14.3 million Nigerians, representing 14.4 per cent of the country’s population, used psychoactive substances, apart from alcohol.
Marwa said to tackle the drug problem in the country, the agency launched the War Against Drug Abuse campaign, which was meant to, in the long run, help prevent the entrenchment of drug abuse culture among young people in the society.
He also canvassed an aggressive reduction in the drug supply chain to reduce substance abuse in the country.
A reporter with the ICIR
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