THOSE who knew me before now would confirm to you that I am presently a shadow of myself. Sitting before you is a psychologically discomfited and emotionally shattered woman who is fast-lapsing into depression. Due to my son’s challenge, everywhere I went with him looking for help and solace, I found people talking in whispers about my battle to save him from the brink of lunacy on account of drug addiction. One faithful day, I was called up by the school authorities to come and take my son home. He was in his penultimate year at the university.
Unknown to me, he had joined the wrong company in school and got introduced to drug and substance abuse. I met him in a sorry state at the school’s medical facility and took him home. Since then, I have been spending money trying to rehabilitate him. I have taken him to two different rehabilitation and counselling centres where he was admitted as an inpatient to help him recover, so he could return to school.
After three months in each of the rehabs, he became well and normal again only for him to return to the habit. Today, he is not only hooked on illicit drugs, he has dropped out of the university and now exhibits symptoms of lunacy. He has sold almost everything in the house just to service his addiction. In the course of seeking a solution, I have incurred huge debt both within and outside my workplace.
This article was informed by the above lamentation of a single mother who is currently distrust and at a crossroads, not knowing what to do regarding her son’s drug addiction and the toll it has taken on his mental health.
Drug abuse, according to Never Alone Adolescent Addiction Treatment Centre, New York, refers to the harmful and excessive use of substances that can lead to physical, mental, and emotional distress. It involves the misuse of legal or illegal drugs in a way that causes adverse effects on the individual’s health, behaviour, relationships, and overall well-being.
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes drug abuse as the harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substances – drugs that affect the brain and alter mood, thinking, or behaviour – including both legal and illegal drugs. This definition presupposes the use of drugs and substances in ways that negatively impact someone’s health, social life or both.
The drugs and substances being abused by Nigerian youths range from legally and socially acceptable ones to illegal and socially unacceptable ones. Most commonly abused are legally accepted substances such as alcohol, cigarettes, over-the-counter (non-prescription) drugs, and prescription drugs, which they take beyond the acceptable dosage to get high.
Nigerian youths equally misuse hard drugs also known as psychoactive substances such as cocaine, nicotine, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, and some pain relievers like tramadol. Other substances abused by Nigerian youths include inhalants (intentional inhaling of fumes like glue), cannabis, hallucinogens, ecstasy, loud, molly, and heroin. The abuse of these substances is detrimental to the health and well-being of those who abuse them.
The incidence of drug and substance abuse among Nigerian youths has assumed epidemic proportions in parts of the country including urban and rural communities; with primary, secondary and tertiary institutions of learning serving as incubation centres.
Although adults and youths alike are involved in drug and substance abuse, statistics have revealed that the age bracket mostly involved is 12-25 years; with young adults aged 18 to 25 having the highest rate of addiction. Most children begin to get initiated into drug and substance use as early as 12 years.
According to a 2021 report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDC), Nigeria has one of the highest rates of drug abuse in Africa, with an estimated 14.3 million people aged between 15 and 64 years abusing drugs. Out of this number, 27.5 per cent are youths.
A similar report by the NDLEA in 2024, puts Nigeria’s drug abuse prevalence rate at 15 per cent, almost tripling the global prevalence rate of 5.5 per cent. Similarly, the National Centre for Drug Abuse Statistics (NCDAS) in its 2025 report, submitted that youth drug abuse is a high-profile public health concern, with at least one in eight teenagers abusing an illicit substance, adding that 2.08 million children between the ages of 12 to 17 years nation-wide are hooked on illicit drugs.
Youths who are involved in drug abuse adduce varying reasons for their indulgence. The major reasons for drug abuse among youths are to get high and numb emotional pains caused by predominantly socio-economic and societal challenges; to help them get over nervous or depressive feelings; to make them forget about their problems; to give them a sense of boldness and fearlessness; and to make them feel belonged, among others.
Drug abuse can negatively affect the individual abuser, family, community, and society in general, leading to loss of productivity in the workplace, increased healthcare costs to both families and government, and other social problems including crime, mental health challenges, psychiatric disorder, trauma, abnormal behaviour, domestic violence, sexual disorder (rape}, shame to family, stigmatization, addiction, cultism, armed robbery, kidnapping, idleness (no meaningful engagement); violent behaviour, and suicide risks, and death.
Some of the behavioural effects of hard drugs on the abusers include mood swings, spontaneous aggression towards others, insomnia, mental health issues such as confusion, impaired cognition, memory loss, paranoia, hallucinations, delusion, and lunacy.
An Asaba-based youth who was once engaged in substance abuse but now fully rehabilitated, revealed that he was hooked on Molly, a synthetic drug with psychedelic effects. He noted that the substance made him high, happy and bold whenever he took it, adding that he took the drug any time he was feeling low in spirit or moody.
He said, ‘’Gradually the drug began to take a toll on my health and my behaviour became increasingly abnormal, a situation which brought serious embarrassment to my family’’. Continues next week
