By Chinedu Adonu

ENUGU – NON governmental Organization, Parent-Child Intervention Centre, PCIC, Wednesday, called on the Federal and state governments to check influx of marijuana-laced edibles through ports in the country.

File: Marijuana

The Executive Director of the Centre, Mrs Peggy Chukwuemeka, made this call on Wednesday in Enugu at a workshop for the Step Down of the 62nd Committee on Narcotic Drugs Meeting held in Vienna in March 2019.

Chukwuemeka noted that there was need to ensure that narcotics laced products especially edible products do not penetrate the borders of the country.

“As a country and people, we should not fall to the antics of organisations and influential individuals who want the use of narcotics such as marijuana or cannabis to be legalised and made free for use in the country.

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“These advanced and developed countries have infrastructures and functional system to check perceived excesses among those that patronize these narcotic-laced edibles; but we do not have such a functional system here.

“Likewise, it negates our African culture; thus, would expose us to acquire culture and life-styles that contravenes our existence as black people with respect and nurture,’’ she said.

In a lecture titled; “Nigeria’s Stance in the Evolving International Substance Abuse Dynamic’’, Mr Eze Eluchie, Executive Director of People Against Drug Dependance and Ignorance, lauded President Muhammadu Buhari on his stance on drug abuse.

Eluchie said that setting up of Presidential Advisory Committee on the Elimination of Drug Abuse (PACEDA) was a step in the right direction as the committee was given task to aggregate and develop home-grown solution to growing drug abuse.

“As a people we must stand firm against drug abuse or else our societal values and norms will be lost forever to violent crimes and other forms of criminality,’’ he said.

According to him, drug abuse only creates waste in any society as the individual taking it will be wasted as well as the drug addict putting up negative and violence actions against other members of the society.

“We cannot afford the luxury of legalising hard drug use in the country since it will cause great harm to our entire society,’’ he said.

Speaking, the Enugu State commander, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Mr Adeofe Adeyemi, called for the support of all to the mandate of the agency to rid the country of drugs.

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Adeyemi, who was represented by Mr Eyeuche Ome, Head of Department of Drug Demand and Reduction Unit, said that fighting drug abuse required a collective efforts, adding; “It is the responsibility of all individuals in the country’’.

The commander said that the agency needed more funding as well as credible information from members of the public on drug barons and cartels to perform maximally.

The workshop was attended by Non-Governmental Organisations, lecturers in secondary and tertiary institutions, members of the media and other stakeholders in the state.