More female students now indulge in hard drugs than male —NDLEA

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on Monday expressed worry over the rate at which female students currently engage in hard drugs in tertiary institutions.

The agency said female students in most Nigerian universities now indulge in hard drugs more than their male counterparts.

The Spokesman of Anambra State command of the agency, Mr Charles Odigie, while speaking during a one-day symposium tagged; Curbing School Dropout and Drug Abuse, made the disclosure and described the situation as worrisome.

According to him, “From the command’s recent arrests of suspected drug offenders in the state, female students were mainly those who formed the bulk of the offenders and harped on the need for re-orientation”.

Read also: 26 dead in Benue tanker explosion

He identified shisha, a popular local hard drug consumed by youths using pipes, as the most widely abused drug by the female students.

Odigie regretted the generally high rate of drug abuse in tertiary institutions, saying it was an indication that students allowed themselves to be influenced in the school environment, where they had more freedom.

The high rate of the abuse, he further said, was due to the absence of school hostels on campuses, making it difficult to control students who abuse these substances.

He added that “Majority of students live off-campus in lodges where neither the landlords, nor caretakers, are there to control them. If they are to be within the school premises, the story would have been different.”

He also observed that the failure of parents to care and monitor their children’s activities in the tertiary institutions was one of the contributory factors to the high rate of social ills in the society and urged parents not to leave the training of their wards entirely to teachers alone.

He explained that NDLEA would continue to sensitize the public on the dangers of drug abuse and urged other government agencies and nongovernmental organizations to strive towards the sensitization of the masses on the evils of drug abuse.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now