Just My 2 Kobo: Say No To Drugs

By Nnamdi Nwachukwu

As a young child, I used to be very critical of King Solomon in the Bible. I did not like the fact that he ‘enjoyed’ life in splendor, wined and dined gracefully, womanized extensively and yet he ended up telling the world that ‘vanity upon vanity, all is vanity’ Why wouldn't he let me taste the good life and then conclude for myself. I know that several people are still in that school of thought. How foolish I was.

I am not a saint. I am a regular young Nigerian graduate and by age I am well qualified to fall in the youth category. Like so many people out there, I am trying to find my feet. I am plotting the graphs of life, hoping that soon things would take shape. I am normal, like several millions, I have/had addictions, I am fighting them, for example for the past five years I have been a smoker. Recently, I decided it was time to quit. It has not been easy but facts I read up scared me and I would love to share them.

Health is wealth!  It is as simple as it sounds. Normally, it starts like a joke, then we do it for fun, gradually it becomes a habit, a vice, an addiction, slowly but definitely lives get imprisoned. In the long run, so many destinies get thwarted. Drug-abuse is neither new nor news for me, maybe because I schooled in northern Nigeria. Whether you get high for fun, or when you are angry, frustrated, happy, here’s what we have been doing to ourselves.

Marijuana: 

The nicknames of this plant are numerous and so are the different variations. Whether its local weed or Ghanaian skunk, the effects are all the same. For avoidance of denial it is most commonly called weed. It used to be for ‘bad-boys’ and cultists way back. Today millions of youth are addicted to this drug. We lie to ourselves and claim that God created it and that it is less harmful. Did you know that;

• Marijuana smoking increases chances of cancer by 50-70%. In other words, one joint would cause as much as harm as would five cigarette sticks. It can cause leukemia cancer of the blood

• Studies have shown that Long term use can indeed make people go mad.

• Marijuana kills sperm cells and upsets menstrual cycles. 

•Long term use can also affects the children of pregnant women. 

Cigarette:

Like me, so many people use this to ‘step down’ after a joint. Here are the most dangerous facts of smoking tobacco. I think this addiction is demonic because even the producers tell us how dangerous it is, yet we still go for it. The dangers are numerous. If only we could take an x-ray of our lungs…if only!

• Did you know that smoking harms almost all your vital organs?

• Tobacco related deaths are the leading preventable cause of deaths in the USA.  Cigarette smoking kills 480,000 people yearly in the USA. 

• Cigarette makes an individual look older than he/she really is and makes the skin sag, age and darken.

•In Nigeria, 90% of all lung cancer cases were from smoking.

• A stick of cigarette cuts short a life by nine hours and each stick of cigarette smoked makes the possibility of quitting harder.

• Cigarette smokers are really liable to die young.

Codeine:

It makes you slow; you are feeling your trips. The short term effects are nowhere as harmful as the long term effects. 

•Codeine keeps you totally dependent on it, making it thrice as hard to stop as it is to begin.  Like a spider-web, the deeper one gets into it, the harder it is to get free.

• Codeine and several other substances in cough-syrups make the skin darker

 • Because most people drink cough syrups to get the high of this opium, the tendency of liver failure is very high. Yearly, liver failures in the north have increased by 70%, thanks to codine.

•In the long run most people require surgery to detox their systems, that is if the liver doesn’t fail before the detox is carried out

Rohypnol:

The nicknames are numerous, whether you call it rufiz, rochi or blue, it is all the same thing. 

• Did you know that the blue pill is given to patients in mental homes as anti-depressants? People with mental disorders are put to sleep or made to calm down with the medication. 

•Did you know that rochi attacks the brain cells making it weak and keeps its abusers at vulnerable states.

 • Long term abuse of this medication leads to severe memory loss.

Crack-cocaine:

It could be with the aid of a stem, bunker or outright sniffing. Either ways you are heading for doom. 

• 75% of all Nigerians held prisoners abroad are for drug-related offences.

• The feat attacks your finances leaving you broke at all times.

 • Its abusers stand the risk of suffering pulmonary embolism. This “high” is never enough and keeps its users in perpetual misery and poverty. 

•Smoking crack-cocaine raises the risks of lung-cancers by 55%.

Possible way out:  

This should be a topic on its own, but after extensive research here is a five-step plan on breaking addictions.

• Admit that is a problem and it requires solution

• Stay away from places and people that trigger your addiction

• Find activities to substitute the times you spend getting high

• Confide in someone who would not judge you, rather would find a way to get help

• Most importantly, talk to God and seek his help.   

• I concur with king Solomon, because in my twenty something years of life, after I have done and seen so far, all vanity is indeed vanity. If you are struggling to quit may heaven help you, if you are not struggling, please don't start, share with people who are stuck! Say no to smoking, say no to drug-abuse, say no to cancer!

Nnamdi Nwachukwu is an Abuja based freelance writer.