EFFECT OF DRUG ABUSE ON NIGERIA YOUTHS (A CASE STUDY OF SURULERE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF LAGOS STATE)
CHAPTER ONE
 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Drugs are commonly used by everybody whether young or old. Drugs are not only useful for human beings; they are also useful for animals for good health. Human beings give drugs to their animals when they discovered that they are not healthy. Drug is an effective substance in the life of any living thing to cure sickness and to make life healthy. It is true that drugs are used for beneficent therapeutic purposes, effective substance for good health, but they are being abused by people especially youths. They use it illegally and unlawfully, thus it becomes harmful to the body.
Drug abuse is the Use of drugs for purposes other than medical reasons, thus affecting the individual in a negative way socially, cognitively or physically Kuria (1996). Social effects may be reflected in an individual’s enhanced tendency to engage in conflicts with friends, teachers, and school authorities. Cognitive effects relate to the individual’s lack of concentration on academic work and memory loss. While Lewinsohn (2007) defines a drug as any product other than food or water that affects the way people feel, think, see, and behave. It is a substance that due to its chemical nature affects physical, mental and emotional functioning. It can enter the body through chewing, inhaling, smoking, drinking, rubbing on the skin or injection.
Drug abuse amongst the global youth population has become a serious problem affecting everyone. Addiction leads many people, young people prominent amongst them, into downward spiral of hopelessness that in some cases ends fatal. They range from glue- sniffing street children and teenage ecstasy users, to hard core heroin and cocaine addicts (Nacada, 2005). Drug abuse is responsible for lost wages, destruction of property in schools, soaring health care costs and broken families. It is a problem which affects us all as parents, children, teachers, government officials, taxpayers and workers.
The African seminar on problems of drug dependence held in Lagos, Nigeria declared that “Drug abuse and dependence producing substances are widely prevalent in African countries have continue to increase. These problems affect the individual, the family and the society in general. Substance abuse, which was originally conceived as the problem of a selected few is today becoming a problem of a sizeable proportion of the world population. The problem is so grave that it has extended beyond the usual characteristic profile of abusers being male, adult, and urban-based to now include females, youngsters and those who live in rural areas. Its economic effect is so devastating that it is estimated that the annual retail cost of psychotropic substances by prescription is over two billion naira while the alcoholic industry which produces over five billion gallons of alcoholic beverages annually generate more than four billion naira from sales to a consumer population of about 30-35 million people (Folawiyo, 2008). Illicit Drug traffic known to generate huge profit and fortune and that is one reason why it has been very difficult to combat the drug traffic in spite of several laws that have been promulgated. For instance, it has been estimated that the sum of $400 billion is the turn over of illicit drug industry, which is equivalent of approximately 8% of total international trade and therefore larger than the trade in iron steel, motor vehicle, textile, tourism (Innerarity, 1999) Drug abuse and other associated problems constitute a major threat to the survival and effective functioning of human societies, lives are lost daily through addiction and activities of addicts.
