Don’t Treat Drug Addicts As Criminals, But As Patients, Expert Warns, At Blue Print Seminar

Medical Director of the Federal Neuro Psychiatric Hospital in Kaduna, Dr. T. L Sheikh has cautioned against treating drug addicts as criminals. He said that drug addicts are actually sick and need medical attention rather than being clamped in detention.
Dr. Sheikh was one of the resource persons that delivered technical papers today, Thursday in Abuja, at a Seminar on Drug Indiscipline that was organized by the Blue Print Newspaper, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health.
The Neuro Psychiatric expert made it clear that substance abuse in itself cannot be regarded as a crime, but that its bye-product which include the real criminal activities, is what makes the difference.
According to him, conventional drugs are not only the ones that are often abused, saying that substances such as common coffee, gum, petrol, tobacco, alcohol are at one time or the other abused by people without knowing it.
“Substances, including drugs would give those who consume them or abuse them false sense of what they are not. That is why they need to be taken to hospitals to attention instead of treating them as criminals.”
He lamented that Nigeria has gradually graduated from being a transit country to consumption nation in regard to all types of dangerous drugs, including narcotics.
Dr. Sheikh appealed to the government and media organizations to rise up and wage serious war against drug abuse before it threw the country into unimaginable human resource crisis.
Declaring the one-day Seminar open, the minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole assured that the federal government is making efforts at all levels to promote rational use of drugs through the implementation of various strategies identified in the National Drug Policy for ensuring national drug use.
“These include publication and review of Essential Medicines List, National Standard Treatment Guidelines, Strengthening of regulatory bodies that are involved in the promotion and use of medicines in the country. Federal Ministry of Health is currently developing the National Prescription Policy which will ensure appropriate prescribing and dispensing that are vital to rational use of medicines.”
Professor Adewole also assured that his ministry is addressing the uncoordinated drug distribution system in Nigeria by developing the National Drug Distribution Guidelines which is envisaged to eliminate fake, substandard, spurious ans unwholesome drugs in Nigeria.
The Chairman, Chief Executive Officer of the Blue Print Newspaper, Alhaji Mohammed Idris promised to institutionalize the Seminar as an annual event as a way of providing a platform for enlightenment of the public.
“This is one of the social responsibilities as a media which we are going to continue with, not for money making.” [myad]