In order to tackle drug abuse and provide better treatment for addicts, the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders have called for the full implementation of Harm Reduction Policies to help in the fight against drug abuse.
Harm reduction policy, which is an internationally acceptable procedure for treating people with drug dependence recently adopted in Nigeria, will focus on working and treating people who use drugs along with their families and communities without judgement, discrimination, and access to medical care.
The Minister of State for Health, Adeleke Olorunnimbe made the call on Monday at a National Symposium on Drug Treatment and Harm Reduction Policies, Guideline for Medication Assisted Treatment for People with Opioid Dependence in Nigeria held in Abuja.
According to Adeleke, the population of those who use drugs in Nigeria is about 14.4 percent of the total population against the global benchmark of 5.6 percent and this calls for an immediate action to find a way to mitigate the number of youths who use drugs.
The stakeholders who participated in the Symposium were the European Union which is funding the project, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency NDLEA and Civil Society Organizations working on drug related issues.
The Chairman of NDLEA, Buba Marwa who gave statistics of Nigerians that use drugs and Opioids, said the agency cannot be resting at a time when a greater percentage of Nigerian youths are involved in drugs.
The Country Representative of UNODC, Dr Oliver Stolpe called for an increase in the capacity of NDLEA to fight the importation of illicit drugs and opioids in the country and also to fund the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics to carry out a national survey on drugs to ascertain if the effort of EU on drug control in Nigeria is yielding result.
Some of the discussants spoke on how the harm reduction policy will improve the fight against drugs, role of law enforcement agencies in ensuring that the policy works and also the benefit of the policy for drug users.
Drug use in Nigeria has increased astronomically as over 14.4million out of Nigeria’s population of over 200 million use drugs for non-medical purpose. The adoption of the harm reduction policy will help in the fight against drugs especially in the area of medical treatment for those who depend on drugs.