Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Brig. General Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd), has warned that current moves by some stakeholders to push for the legalisation of cannabis in Nigeria will rob the country of the gains so far made in the renewed war against drug abuse and trafficking in the country.
The NDLEA boss spoke in Abuja on Wednesday at a national security summit organised by the House of Representatives. He said the present figure of 10.6million Nigerians abusing cannabis is frightening and enough to sound the alarm bell. He said the strong nexus between drug abuse and the security challenges across the country is incontrovertible.
According to him, drug abuse is indeed one of the factors fueling insecurity if the dots were to be connected. “The relationship between substance abuse and crime is a fact. What is clear is that no sane human being will rise against society to commit the kind of gross atrocities as we are witnessing in recent years, except such an individual has first hardened his heart with mind-altering substances.
So beyond speculations and armchair theories, there is ample evidence, from report statistics and from empirical data from the field, to conclude that the use of illicit substances is a contributing factor to the worsening security situation in Nigeria.
And if this is so, Nigeria should be the last country to consider a law to legalise marijuana in any shape or form. Should we have such a law, we will soon become a nation of junkies and criminals. As such, I will like to caution that our lawmakers should not legalise cannabis because it will amount to taking a step forward and ten steps backward. It will no doubt rob the nation of recent gains in the war against illicit drugs,” he said.
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