By Chinonye Anyatonwu
Mr. Ameh giving some advise to the children at the Symposium
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has organised a Forum/Symposium for participants from different secondary schools in and around Lagos State at the United Christian Primary School, Bombay Road, Apapa, Lagos.
In an opening address, the Apapa Area Special Commander of the NDLEA, Mr. Inalegwu Ameh cautioned the young students of the various schools that attended the Symposium about the inherent dangers in drug trafficking and abuse, warning them that they have most part of their lives very much ahead of them and so should refrain from being tempted into the destructive world of drug trafficking and abuse.
A picture of students from various schools listening attentively to the training by Mrs. Ilugbuhi.
The chief speaker at the Forum/Symposium, Mrs. Maria Ilugbuhi, a Global trainer, drug use prevention trained the children on the definition, types and ways of shunning the menace of drug abuse.
Mrs. Ilugbuhi as a way of introducing the students into the subject of the day defined Psychoactive substances as those substances that affect the brain and the spinal chord and these include cocaine, heroin and marijuana. She spoke also on drug literacy which is the ability to understand the use and effects of drugs as she admonished that peer pressure and normative beliefs should not be allowed to derail the beautiful future that will be the lot of the participating children.
The trainer indicated that a research carried out in Nigeria on 97 teenagers comprising of 56 boys and 41 girls shows that those who have smoked cigarette over the past one month were 1.0% of the lot, those who have ever experimented on cigarette were 4.1%, those that have tasted alcohol in the past one month of the lot were 5.4% and those who have ever tasted alcohol were 23% and those who have ever tasted any form of drug or alcoholic substances were 1.3%. She concluded that the research shows that those who have never tasted drugs or any of such substances were in the majority, but that care should be taken so that more children do not fall into the addictive habits of drug and alcohol abuse as she urged the children to be more curious in learning about the harmful effects of substance abuse.
She advised that teenagers should have decision making and assertiveness skills so that they cannot be easily influenced, but be more refrained from being externally influenced.
