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‘Drug menace requires sub-regional effort to deal with’

Kwame Asare Boadu Aug - 21 - 2014 , 08:16

President John Dramani Mahama has stated that the drug menace in West Africa is a regional problem rather than a country-specific one and therefore requires the collaboration of all the leaders to deal with it decisively.

He also said the challenge required information sharing as a sure way of dealing with it.

President Mahama, who is the Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), made the observation when he received a report on the drug situation in the sub-region from the West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD) at the Flagstaff House in Accra yesterday.

Former Nigerian President and chairman of the WACD, General Olusegun Obasanjo, and Mr Kofi Annan, the Chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, led members of the commission to the Flagstaff House to present the report to President Mahama.

The report titled, "Not just in transit: Drugs, Society and the State in West Africa," was the outcome of a one-and-half-a-years engagement the commission had with regional, national and international partners on finding a lasting solution to the drug menace.

President Mahama said the title of the report testified that the region was not only a transit point, but also becoming a destination.

He said throughout the sub-region, governments were battling drug traffickers and drug lords who had the financial wherewithal to corrupt the system.

The WACD’s report had recommended, among others, a call on regional governments to treat drug use as a public health issue with socio-economic causes and consequences rather than a crime.

Ghana’s situation

Focusing on Ghana, President Mahama said significant successes had been achieved in tackling the drug problem, with the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) playing a lead role.

He, however, admitted that investment in rehabilitation facilities was virtually non-existent, so the mental hospitals were the only places where drug users could be sent. That, he said, was not good enough, so the government had to focus on the plight of petty drug users.

"We should be more sympathetic and create opportunities for them to get the kind of care and support they need," he said.

Obasanjo

Gen. Obasanjo, for his part, said the feeling that West Africa had nothing to do with the consumption and manufacturing of drugs had been proved wrong by the commission.

The drug issue, he said, was not only affecting the lives of the youth but was also creeping into the political system and governments. Drug barons, he said, took advantage of their financial power to do everything, stressing that "they can buy, they can do and they can undo."

Generally, Gen Obasanjo said, the region was ill-prepared for the drug onslaught, and called for prudent measures to check the canker.

He spoke against the practice where all drug handlers were bundled together as criminals, saying petty users, for instance, required health care attention rather than being tagged as criminals and put in jail.

Kofi Annan

He said while drugs had destroyed the lives of many people, "wrong-headed governmental policies have destroyed many more," adding that the time had come for a shift.

He said the drug trade had the power to corrupt and undermine societal development and security, and also subvert justice, therefore, a way should be found to deprive the drug barons of the opportunities they had.

Additionally, Mr Annan said arrangements were being made for an international conference on drugs in 2016 and expressed the hope that West African countries would avail themselves of the meeting.