According to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), young people are now turning to methylated spirit and nail polish to get “high.”

According to the agency, some users are finding traditional narcotics like codeine syrup, tramadol, and cannabis to be too expensive.

This information was revealed by Ogun State Commander Tijjani Rabe at a meeting with NANS members at the command’s Abeokuta headquarters.

Rabe lamented that the threat was a source of worry for the relatives of the victims, the community, and Nigeria as a whole. He was represented by the Deputy State Commander, Ekundayo Williams.

The Commander lamented the fact that the agency was seeing an annual rise in spite of multiple campaigns of lobbying and sensitization.

He said, “why are we worried? I want to take you back to the last survey carried out in 2018; that survey made us understand that 14.3 million Nigerians aged between 15 and 16 have used one substance in the previous years and from this survey we have an increase of 5.6 percent compared to what we had in 2016.

“The same survey made us understand that 20 percent of these 14.3 million people have drug disorders.

“We are made to understand that apart from these conventional drugs, people now use other non-conventional substances which mostly are household items like nail polish, methylated spirit and so on since they cannot afford to buy the conventional drugs and this has been found mostly among our youths”.

He claimed that one in five drug abusers injects narcotics using syringes and needles, lamenting the fact that this allows blood-borne illnesses like Hepatitis B and HIV to proliferate.

The head of the NDLEA emphasised that Ogun State has a higher than average number of postsecondary institutions, which attract students from a wide range of backgrounds and orientations. Despite this, the NDLEA chief noted that the state’s southwest region has the greatest rate of drug-related problems in the nation.

He mentioned that the agency has brought awareness-raising and advocacy to schools, places of worship, marketplaces, parks, and rural areas in cooperation with sister organisations and other pertinent stakeholders.

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