LET'S STOP THESE PUSHERS

NEWS that narcotic drugs are now sold in the vicinity of some junior high schools (JHS) in the nation’s capital and elsewhere is disheartening indeed.
This is much so because it points to one fact — that an increasing number of students in JHS are using drugs.
And, according to the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), the trend of drug use among this category of students is getting alarming, coupled with the fact that in some areas within the Accra metropolis, drug sales take place so much in the open that the selling points in the vicinity of some schools are known to almost the entire student population.
In line with NACOB’s preventive and educational functions, it visited 42 selected schools in Accra and its findings, which include a clever way of advertising drugs in the vicinity of schools, as well as some students’ admission of drug use and their dexterity in its preparation, must be of concern to all.
In the first half of last year, the Accra Psychiatric Hospital recorded a total of 265 mental cases among children, which included acute psychosis, neurosis, depression and drug abuse.
The commonest among these was drug abuse which involved marijuana, commonly known as “wee”, and cocaine use and the victims were students of first and second-cycle schools.
It came out then that while some of the victims were lured into drug use by their friends, drug barons, on the other hand, used the youth as couriers, in line with their slogan, “catch them young and they will get hooked”.
The NACOB lends further credence to this scenario by stating that some drug users in and around schools use students in the purchase of such drugs and that the failure to run such errands by the students results in their being flogged.
The picture painted by NACOB is so frightening that we cannot afford to ignore what the drug pushers are doing in our schools.
The fact is that they are destroying our children in the schools and something drastic should be done to stop them immediately.
The NACOB’s main goal is to ensure a drug-free society through simultaneous supply and demand reduction measures, which it is doing through the following:
• enforcement and control,
• education and prevention,
• treatment, rehabilitation
and integration.
It is imperative, therefore, that NACOB, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Police Service liaise to come up with immediate and long-term measures to stop these dangerous pushers from destroying the future of our young generation who, in reality, are the future of our nation.
Already, some of our youth are committing heinous crimes like armed robbery, car snatching, as well as mobile phone and handbag snatching. Sometimes they kill and maim their victims.
These crimes are creating some insecurity in the country a situation which is quite disturbing.
Let’s all act to stop the drug menace.