DRUGS AND MENTAL CASES

DR Sammy Allotey, specialist in charge of the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital
in the Greater Accra Region, has disclosed that 17,000 mental patients have
been treated and discharged from the hospital this year alone.

He also indicated that a total of 250,521 mental patients have been treated
and discharged by the hospital since its establishment 25 years ago.

Dr Allotey, who made this known at the end-of-year fund-raising gathering
on Wednesday, also expressed concern about the increasing numbers of young
people reporting with mental cases arising from drug abuse and appreciable
numbers of women who have been emotionally and physically abused (see
centre pages).

It is true that the rising incidence of mental cases is a global phenomenon
from which Ghana and other countries cannot completely claim immunity.
Globalisation has made nonsense of the otherwise wide distances that
separate nations and actively facilitated the bringing together of people
of diverse ethnic, religious, racial, social, economic and other
backgrounds. With this advantage of proximity engendered by globalisation
has come a variety of influences both positive and negative.

But whilst we have been relatively slow, mainly because of our level of
development, in making advances in the technological sphere to enable us to
close the yawning technological gap between us and the developed world, we
have rapidly assimilated some negative traits and values from the developed
world which have had and continue to have far-reaching consequences for our
nations and people.

The proliferation and increasing use of hard drugs such as marijuana,
cocaine, heroin and others are, in a large measure, reported to account for
the rise in the number of mental cases in the society.

It has particularly become attractive for the youth to take to such drugs
as a result of peer pressure or as inducement to indulge in acts of
mischief or the supposed pleasure they give them.

In some of our second cycle and tertiary institutions, the indulgence in
hard drugs has been wrongly and dangerously elevated to the status of
enlightenment with those who shy from their use being tagged as "uncivilised".

But the bigger danger in this regard has been the erroneous impression in
the ranks of many students that resorting to the use of hard drugs enhances
their ability to assimilate their lessons and thus boost their academic
performance. Largely on the strength of this misconception, a good number
of students, many of whom are brilliant enough to pass their examinations
without any external assistance, have ended up in psychiatric hospitals and
ruined their educational career.

The revelation by the authorities of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital
recently to the effect that an appreciable number of students have come
there seeking medical attention on account of drug abuse is but a testimony
to this serious concern raised by us. T he Graphic perceives education and
the exertion of more parental influence, including that of teachers at
school, as important factors that can help stem the tide of the increasing
drug abuse in the society.

In this challenging 21st Century that we have entered, a healthy, strong
and well-educated and focused youth represents the hope for the future.

It is, therefore, a matter of serious concern for considerable numbers of
the youth to waste their lives on drugs and instead of being assets, have
rather become liabilities whom the state has to spend huge sums of money to
rehabilitate.