NDLEA BOSS URGES NIGERIANS TO PROTECT YOUTHS AGAINST DRUG ABUSE

Lagos -- The Chairman of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA),
Alhaji Bello Lafiaji has appealed to Nigerians to take very urgent steps
towards insuring the Nigerian youths against the raging menace of illicit
drug trafficking and abuse.

Alhaji Lafiaji who made the appeal in Abuja at the grand finale of the week
long series of activities marking 2004 United Nations International Day
Against Illicit Trafficking And Drug Abuse said the youths have remained
the most vulnerable age group and that the need to insure them is hinged on
the fact that only youths with healthy bodies and sound minds can fulfil
their expected responsibility of building a strong and virile nation.

The chairman who lauded the choice of this year's commemoration theme
'Drugs: Treatment Works' decried the haplessleness being experienced by
drug dependent persons and their unwillingness to go for treatment and low
levels of belief in the effectiveness of treatment, all of which he said,
have combined to make treatment of drug dependent persons difficult.

The NDLEA boss who was represented at the event by the
Director-General/Secretary of the agency, Mr. Dave Ashang admonished all
and called on all and sundry to contribute their quota to the drug war and
not to be in the web of the belief that the drug war is only for the NDLEA
and other stakeholders alone.

The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Chief Akinlolu Olujinmi who
was the special guest of honour at the event lamented the soaring incidence
of drug abuse particularly among the youths which he said results in the
prevalence of admissions for mental illness in our health institutions.
This, according to him, called for great concern as it could adversely
affect the future of the nation and the world in general.