DRUG SENSITISATION IN VERITAS UNIVERSITY IN CONJUCTION WITH NDLEA Bwari Area Command

My team was lead by Public Relation Officer (PRO) of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), FCT command Mr Peter Adegbe, a front-man in the campaign against drug abuse and misuse in the fedral capital, Abuja. the sensitization had in attendance over 1000 students.

The topic of the discussion was “The Sad End of Drug Abuse”. The relationship between drug, crime, violence, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, D and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) was explained.

the PRO of the NDLEA started the sensitization with a story of how a young boy got himself involved with drugs and finally addicted to amphetamine, with a slide show being projected. Addressing the students, he said "Drug abuse will bring lots of health hazards and that students who are drug-dependent will eventually drop out of school, look older than their age, might end up in jail and even liable to die young."

Reasons people get involved in drugs abuse were identified; curiosity, idleness, peer pressure, availability, psychological factor (low self esteem), media influence and identity factor.
He ended with the fact that though there is provision to attend to drug addicts via rehabilitation, emphasized that how successful an addict can get out of his condition is solely dependent on the addict to identify his problem and is willing to come out of it. Also coupled with the fact that there is a tendency to fall back to this bad habit.
In the course of the sensitization, a booklet and fliers on drug abuse were distributed to the students.

amazingly some of the students of these school were able to give us information on sellers of these illicit drugs such as cocaine, marijuana and tramadol