NIGERIAN YOUTHS AND DRUGS

According to a survey carried out by Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Center for Research and Information on Substance Abuse with technical support from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and funding from the European Union, it discovered that in 2018,15% of the adult population in Nigeria (around 14.3 million people) reported  a “considerable level” of use of psychoactive drug substance and majority of the drug abusers were between 25-39 years. Furthermore,In Nigeria, one in seven persons aged 15-64 years had used a drug (other than tobacco and alcohol) in the past year.  Among every 4 drug users in Nigeria is a woman.
Whew！Enough of the statistics, drug abuse have been a prevalent issue in our society, we've lost brothers,sisters and friends to this menace. There is no stopping in the rise of this abuse. To understand more on how to contain the increase, this article will be focussing on various psychoactive substances and how dangerous they are to health.
 Psychoactive substances are substances that, when taken in or administered into one's system, affect mental processes, e.g. cognition or affect. Psychoactive substances are found in a number of medications as well as in alcohol, illegal and recreational drugs, and some plants and even animals. Illegal use of this drug leads to substance abuse which could further lead to psychological and physical dependence.
 Let's do a little throwback to freshman year, during our tutorials we were told of an academic whiz kid, you could see their eyes light up and the smiles visible when they spoke about this guy.
But that fire died down and the smiles disappeared when it got to the part where he ruined his life because of drugs.
Example of regularly abused drugs according to NBS' report includes but not limited to;
 Cannabis otherwise called marijuana is the most commonly used drug. An estimated 10.8 per cent per cent of the population or 10.6 million people, had used cannabis in the past year.Cannabis use was 7 times higher among men (18.8 percent among men vs. 2.6 per cent of women). Symptoms of cannabis abuse includes psychomotor impairment,  hallucinations and unusual body ssnsations.
  Opioids known for its morphine like actions also called narcotic analgesic(narcotic pain killers) was abused by 4.6million Nigerians in 2018. It also acts as a hypnotic and euphoriant. Abuse of opioids causes decreased urine output(ADH), constipation, COMA, etc.
Other abused over the counter drugs include, codeine, hallucinogens,  sedatives and nicotine etc.
   Increased abuse of this substances could cause psychological dependence which could either be mental, where an individual continues to abuse a drug to escape reality,  his problems and frustrations or it could be emotional where an abuser enjoys the euphoric effect of a drug that he cannot function without the drug.