NACOB RESTRUCTURING MUST BE ENCOMPASSING

NEWS of a shake up at the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB) is welcome, indeed.
Even more assuring is the objective of the exercise which is to create a system of fighting drugs in Ghana that will be difficult to corrupt and compromise.
According to the Executive Director of NACOB, Mr Benjamin Botwe, the restructuring and expansion exercise is also to strengthen the capacity of the board to deal more effectively with the drug trade in the country.
Last Thursday, Ghana joined the international community to celebrate International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking and, in the words of the Interior Minister, Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor, on that occasion, the trafficking and use of ilicit drugs in the country had reached unacceptable dimensions.
Not too long ago, we alerted the nation to the alarming rate at which educational institutions in the country were fast becoming drug dens, with drug selling points located and openly advertised in the vicinity of senior high schools.
In May 2006, a fishing trawler with a cargo of 30 kilogrammes of cocaine was intercepted at the Tema Harbour. The vessel was described as part of a fleet suspected to be engaged in the haulage of large quantities of the illegal substance from South America across the high seas to Ghana.
In that same year, the police intercepted large quantities of a substance suspected to be cocaine at the Prampram Beach.
The haul, whose street value was estimated at millions of dollars, was believed to be one of the biggest in the country in recent times.
And in 2007, a large quantity of cocaine concealed in 60 cans of palmnut cream concentrate and meant for export to the United Kingdom was intercepted by security operatives at the Kotoka International Airport.
This is not all. Nine police officers were busted and interdicted in June 2007 on suspicion of being involved in the cocaine trade.
Police sources said at that time that the officers deserted their post in Accra to escort five suspected dealers to Half Assini to retrieve parcels of cocaine that had been washed ahsore the Gulf of Guinea. This is not to forget the mysterious loss of many parcels of cocaine at the CID Head Office at the Police Headquarters.
Over the years, the government has adopted various measures in its fight against illicit drug trafficking and use in the country, including a collaboration with international anti-narcotic agencies.
It is in the light of these that we would want the restructuring at NACOB to be undertaken in a very thorough and professional manner.
The board’s main goal is to ensure a drug-free society through simultaneous supply-and-demand-reduction measures.
This, to be effective, should be done through enforcement and control, education and prevention, treatment and rehabilitation and social re-integration.
We would urge the authorities to restructure the board for it to perform these functions effectively.
The enforcement and control, educational and preventive aspects should be firmly embeded in the restructuring. But that is not to say that the treatment, rehabilitation and social re-integration of junkies are not important. They are and the restructuring should encompass all.