BOOMING TRADE IN CUT-PRICE DRUGS ADDS TO NIGERIA'S WOES

HANGING in wooden cages suspended from the ceiling, dancers dressed in
belt-length skirts performed high-speed hip jiggles that would have snapped
the spines of lesser mortals.

A young prostitute fired up a joint coated with cannabis oil, inhaled
deeply and sat back to enjoy the heady mix of sex 'n' drugs 'n' rock 'n'
roll at Nigeria's most famous nightclub - The Shrine.

Outside, street hustlers emerged through a smog of pungent pot smoke,
offering harder drugs, heroin and crack cocaine, to punters wandering the
dark streets in search of oblivion.

In Nigeria, the transshipment point for 40-60 per cent of the world's
heroin, and at least a third of all cocaine consumed in Europe, oblivion
comes cheap.

The discount prices for drugs have caused an explosion of abuse that
threatens to undermine the social fabric of a nation already staggering
under the weight of decades of military rule, corruption and unemployment.

According to the United Nations and international security forces employed
in the global war on drugs, Nigeria's drug traffickers have launched a
campaign to hook their own people into a cycle of dependency in the name of
profit.

"In Lagos, lbadan, Port Harcourt and Kano, cocaine and heroin are
increasingly easily available and used. To suit the local market
conditions, where people do not have much money, drugs have become cheap.
They are cut [diluted with inert substances] and made into different grades
for the different parts of the market," Shariq bin Raza, the UN's
Nigeria-based anti-drug chief, said. The surge in Nigerian narcotics
abusers, experts said, was in part caused by local successes in combating
the international trafficking industry. These had "forced" the drug lords
into "distress sales" in which they dumped goods on the local market to
realise some profit, rather than have their goods rot in hideouts which
risked discovery.

"The Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency [under Major-General Musa Bamayil
has made an enormous effort to rid itself of corruption within its own
ranks and combat the trafficking problem. The problem is that NDLEA
successes sometimes mean that there are more drugs on the local market," Mr
bin Raza, of the UN International Drug Control Programme said.

Other Western security sources said that Nigerian "mules" - individuals who
swallow condoms filled with narcotics to smuggle them into Europe and
America were being seduced into dependency so they could be paid in drugs.

"The result of this is obvious; the mules want to maximize their own
profits, so they sell their drugs on the local market. They create addicts,
they are addicts themselves, and suddenly you have a whole new market for
drugs," one Western anti-drug security source said.

The huge profit margins made by drug smugglers has opened their eyes to
vast possibilities in discounted bulk sales to Third World consumers.

The collapse of most Nigerian government departments under the late General
Sani Abacha, whose plunderous five-year rule ended with his death earlier
this month, has meant that no accurate statistics are available for the
extent of Nigeria's domestic drug problem. But experts said that it was an
epidemic in the making.

Isolated diplomatically and squeezed by sanctions against General Abacha,
which cut foreign aid, Nigerian anti-drugs campaigners have been hamstrung,
and the results are graphic.

For many Nigerians, the money being spent on drugs is at the expense of
more basic commodities - like food.

Checked-by: Richard Lake