19th November, 2018
A Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Dr Grace Ijarogbe, has called for increased campaign against drug abuse by targeting schools, teachers and children.
Ijarogbe made the appeal on Monday in Lagos in commemoration of the World Children’s Day.
The day is celebrated annually on Nov. 20.
The consultant, who works at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Centre, Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Oshodi Annex, said that children were often left out in the campaign against drug abuse.
“In all this pursuit of anti-drug use, we go with the adults, but the truth is that right now, a lot of our children are using drugs.
“Thirty to 40 per cent of all the children we have in our community are into one drug or the other; either the gateway drugs or the real drugs itself.
“Most of the children are not involved in the campaign; the schools are not involved, the teachers are not trained to be able to detect or help those children.
“We need to have something changed drastically.
“Both our teachers, children and the community need to have the campaign go straight to them and are made aware of the drugs that are being bastardised in the community,’’ she said.
Ijarogbe attributed unstable homes, conflict in homes and homes where parents are not available as some of the reasons why children abuse drugs.
She said there was need for parents to know that children must be within the context of an adult through life to prevent incidences of drug abuse.
“It means that in the morning, children are within the context of their parents; in school, it should be their teachers; when they return home they should be within the context of their caregivers or nannies.
“Then when the parents returned home, the children should be handed over to their parents and it’s a cycle like that.
“Anything that breaks that cycle automatically exposes that child to becoming a bait by anybody out there that may want to take advantage of them,” she said.
Ijarogbe, however, recommended some preventive measures that could help children stay away from drugs, which include not subjecting children to much pressure.
“Our community is under too much pressure; children go to school, they are in traffic till night, or they are not doing well in school, or they are given huge textbooks to read.
“It demoralises them, makes them feel they are not capable enough; the work may be too overwhelming for their age and so it will drive them to seek things that can help them improve their capacity.
“Parents should give them what is appropriate for their age; if a child is to repeat a class, let him or her repeat; do not put them under pressure that will force them into drugs,‘’ she said.
The consultant urged teachers to help supervise children in school and do random checks.
“We need to bring back old habits that teachers had in those days; let them introduce the random search and begin to screen in their schools.
“Let there be a kind of indiscriminate kind of reporting where the pairs can be made to report each other; so that those that are picked up who have these problems can be helped.
“The school should involve professionals who would do detoxification and use some certain things to wash out the drugs from their system, give them a break period and restore them.
“The whole community is a watchdog; we should learn to report people who sell these drugs and get them out of our communities so they do not corrupt our children,’’ Ijarogbe said.