The Medical Director, Yaba Psychiatric Hospital, Dr. Olugbenga Owoeye, has called for the collective efforts of parents and teachers to curb the increasing rate of illicit substance use and drug abuse among youths.
Owoeye made the call at a lecture organised by the hospital to commemorate the 2025 World Drug Day on the theme: “Breaking the Chain” on Thursday in Lagos.
The World Drug Day is marked annually on June 26, to strengthen action and cooperation in achieving a world free of drug abuse.
He decried that drug abuse/illicit use of substances had become a public concern globally, saying that parents and teachers have a great role to play in curbing the menace.
According to him, a survey in 2021 revealed that about 64 million individuals suffer from drug disorders and 600,000 lives are lost annually to drug abuse.
“This underscored the need to actually break the chain of drug abuse through the parents, teachers, and the society at large by ensuring more advocacies, education and understanding on the effects of drugs.
“Expand available treatment services, destigmatise drug abuse and foster international cooperation toward ending the menace of drug abuse.
“If the parents and teachers can rise to their responsibility of educating and inculcating good moral behaviours in the children and teenagers, it will go a long way to help, because abuse of drugs starts from the home,” he said.
The Keynote Speaker, Dr. Abayomi Ojo, said that abuse of substances and drugs had become prevalent among young people, particularly the youths.
Ojo, also the Head, Drug Unit of the hospital, identified 18 to 25 years of age as the most vulnerable age bracket when drug use was usually picked.
He said that genetic issues, early deprivation, poor social skills, adversity, influence, lack of religious beliefs, and early exposure to substances were some risk factors to drug abuse.
He also decried the effects of the internet and social media on the mental health of many youths, saying that many young people got the wrong information on drug abuse and other atrocities from the internet.
On preventive measures to drug abuse, Ojo identified parents as pivotal players, urging them to establish good communication/relationship with their children.
“Unfortunately, more than 90 per cent of psychiatric patients at the rehabilitation homes and psychiatric hospitals are young adults/youths who developed mental illness due to drug abuse.
“Exposure to the internet also gives these youths access to a lot of wrong and bad information concerning most of the toxicant substances/drugs and how they can be used.
“Hence, the need for increasing the involvement of the parents and educational institutions through emphasis on programmes about the dangers of drug abuse,” he said.
The programme featured a panelists session by representatives from different selected schools in attendance.
The students discussed the issue of illicit use of substances/drug abuse; the effects and ways the country could provide a lasting solution to the menace.
One of the students, Olugoso Oluwabuyiwummi, decried that many youths were embracing several crude options of coping mechanisms in an effort to cope with stress/challenges of life, which drug use was one of them.
Oluwabuyiwummi, therefore, urged the parents to take it upon themselves to sensitise their children that drug abuse was not an option, but a destructive act.
