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By Sunday Ani
The National Association of Seadogs (NAS), Festac chapter, also known as Saratoga X Deck, on Tuesday, urged the students of Christhill College, Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, to stay away from drug and substance use and abuse.
The warning was handed down to the students by the association’s president, Mr. Afam Chukwuma, during a seminar held at the school’s premises to sensitize the students on the dangers of substance use and drug abuse.
The seminar organised by the association and titled, “Substance use and abuse among adolescents,” according to Mr. Chukwuma, was part of the association’s corporate social responsibility.
He told the students that as a charitable and human rights organisation that speaks for the voiceless and reaches out to the forgotten and downtrodden, the association felt it was necessary to enlighten them on the need to stay away from drug abuse as it is capable of ruining their future.
He reminded them that as great future leaders of the world, who would make Nigeria proud tomorrow; they needed to be protected from the harmful influence of drugs and substance abuse.
The guest lecturer and psychologist, Gloria Oluchi Kalu, who is also a substance abuse treatment expert, made the students understand that when the issue of substance and drug abuse is mentioned, reference is always made to psychoactive drugs. She describes psychoactive drugs as those drugs that can affect mental processes like thinking, behavior and emotions when taken.
She also listed some psychoactive drugs to include alcohol, cigarette, cannabis, depressant and marijuana among others, reminding them that addiction to drugs always starts from when students hold their annual graduation party.
She warned them to flee from drugs and never allow anybody, no matter how close such people are to them, to influence them even into tasting it because “drugs don’t keep you where you want. It is better not to start it all.”
Explaining how addiction starts, she took them through the effects of drug and substance abuse to include mood swing, memory loss, and respiratory issues like coughing, hallucination, paranoia, suicidal thoughts, decreased intelligent quotient and even death.
She also revealed some common reasons that push people into drugs and warned them never to cave in to any of those reasons. The reasons she gave the students included the need for high self esteem, peer pressure and social influence, family background, curiosity, escape from problem, academic or performance pressure and social media influence among others.
“You should always choose your friends wisely, seek help when you are struggling with mental illness, kill the temptation to experiment, believe in yourself and be accountable to someone, an adult preferably. Most importantly, remember that drugs don’t keep you where you want to be; it takes you far away. So, even though some of the psychoactive drugs like alcohol are socially acceptable, they can still be addictive and have very serious negative effects. So, don’t even try to experiment because some mental illnesses as a result of drug abuse are irreversible and I am sure you don’t want your family to go through such stress,” she advised.
She eventually made the students pledge that they would not be influenced by anything to get involved in drugs under any circumstance.
