Members of the House of Representatives on Thursday raised the alarm over a sharp rise in drug abuse among youths in the North and demanded urgent measures to be put in place by regulatory agencies.
The lawmakers said Codeine and Tramadol were drugs abused daily by youths because they were easily accessed over the counter.
Members noted that consumers hid under the guise of drinking codeine to treat cough, but were in the real sense abusing the substance.
They added that Tramadol was a prescription drug that should not have been dispensed except prescribed by a medical doctor.
A member from Sokoto State, Mr. Abdulsamad Dasuki, who moved a motion on the development, sought a ban on the sale of codeine and tramadol over the counter across the country.
He said the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control must introduce tougher regulatory measures to contain what could become a major national crisis.
Dasuki stated that boys and girls were already abusing the drugs freely and becoming addicts in the process.
His motion was titled, “Need to Stop Abuse by Banning the Sale of Codeine and Tramadol over the Counter and Address its Abuse in Northern Nigeria.”
For example, members said statistics indicated that in Kano and Jigawa States alone, three million bottles of codeine were consumed by youths daily.
The House noted, “If this number is consumed in just two states of the 19 northern states, when the figures of the other 17 states are added, it is catastrophic.”
The House added that codeine had been identified to cause health risks such as breathing disorder, asthma, and kidney disease.
The motion partly read, “Codeine abuse poses a major challenge of unparalleled description to the survival of the region in particular and the nation in general as its youths and womenfolk are faced with the threat of being rendered useless from adverse effects of the abuse of the medicine.”
One member from Adamawa State, Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, told the House that drug abuse could be a reason for the recent rise in spousal violence, including murder.
“We have seen lately, cases of wives killing their husbands or husbands attacking their wives.
“These incidents may be tied to drug abuse and the craze to smoke Shisha and other substances,” he said.
The motion was passed in a majority voice vote at the session, which was presided over by the Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara.
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