The Police Community Relations Committee
has partnered the Nigeria Policing Programme to sensitize schools on
the dangers of drug abuse and anti-cultism, in commemoration of the
World Drug Abuse Day......
The programme, held at Oriwu College, Ikorodu, Lagos, drew no fewer than 400 pupils from 56 schools in the town.
A clinical psychiatrist, Dr. Afolabi
Temitayo, while speaking on the evils in abusing drugs, said the menace
was no longer a teen issue as young people below the teen years were now
involved in the habit.
“No drug abuser plans to get addicted,
kill his parents or drop out of school, they find themselves there only
to see that they are trapped. So, not starting at all or stopping now is
the solution to drug abuse. All of these drugs have medicinal use, but
it is the over-use that is an abuse. The fact that a drug is legal does
not make it safe,” he noted.
A Director of Mirabel Centre, an NGO,
Mrs. Joy Shokoya, spoke about the consequences of peer pressure, as she
urged the pupils to make friends that encouraged them to do positive
things.
She said, “When the pupils move with
good friends, their character will be developed in making right choices.
They will excel in their academics. But if they follow bad friends,
they will find themselves indulging in social vices which may cut their
lives short.
As a result, as long as you have friends, there will be
pressure. But you have to deal with it by having self-control,
confidence and hanging out with people who gear you towards positivity.”
The Commander, Rapid Respose Squad,
Lagos State, ACP Olatunji Disu, who spoke on ‘Crime, Your Choices and
Your Future’, said pupils would gain nothing in crime and that the best
decision they would ever make for their future was to take a stand
against cultism, drug abuse and other social vices.
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