NDLEA Hails House Of Reps Over Failure To Legalize Cannabi

The Chairman/CEO of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd), has commended the House of Representatives for rejecting a bill legalizing cannabis cultivation, sale, and use in Nigeria.

In a statement released on Friday, the NDLEA chairman asserted that the majority of lawmakers’ rejection of the proposal would further the gains already made in the country’s fight against drug abuse and trafficking.

Marwa said the fact that 10.6 million Nigerians consume cannabis alone, as reported by the 2018 drug study, should cause grave alarm. He added that there is a clear connection between drug misuse and the nation’s numerous security challenges.

Marwa asserted that those who protect parents and their children from legislation that would turn Nigeria into a country of addicts and criminals will be remembered.

He said, “Insecurity is today, a full-blown malady with many manifestations such as insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, murder, robbery, reprisal killing, name it.

“Yet there has never been a government that is more committed to ending this spate of insecurity than the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“The President has matched political willpower with resources, but the scope and frequency of these acts of destabilization and the audacity displayed by the perpetrators call for a second, critical look at the malaise.

“The persistence of the problem has forced on us the necessity to start to look at likely extraneous factors that might be sustaining the resistance from the criminal elements and in doing so, try to connect the dots.

“The permutations will lead to a list of probable causes, which will not exclude the use and abuse of illicit substances. In the final analysis, drug abuse is indeed one of the factors fueling insecurity.

“As such, Nigeria cannot afford to permit the cultivation, sale, and use of the most abused illicit drug under whatever guise.

“This is why the decision by the honorable members of the House of Representatives to reject the re-introduction of the cannabis bill is welcome and cheering news to us in NDLEA and the Nigerian public especially parents who daily and silently contend with the pains of seeing millions of their kids and wards go down under the devastating effects of cannabis abuse.”