Tramadol abuse, a great threat to national development.
By Christopher Tetteh,
SUNYANI
ttchrietoph1@gmail.com
Friday, August 30, 2019.
The misuse of marijuana (weed), cocaine, heroin and mostly tramadol is a threats to national development, Ms Akua Amponsaa Owusu, the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regions acting Director of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has observed.
This, she noted is because drug addicts are mostly involved in crimes such as armed-robbery, rape and murder, as well as key facilitators of other social vices and generally caused socioeconomic loss to the nation.
In an interview pertaining to the possible effects of abusing substances containing hard drugs, she point out to the fact that the Nation lost public funds through expenditure on drugs to the psychiatric hospitals.
As matter of fact, “those monies could have been used to finance physical infrastructural projects and implementation of other programs and policies for job creation opportunities for the unemployed youth”.
The poor roads networks, portable water, electricity, lack of infrastructure for the basic schools in the roomote areas in the country, furniture and other materials for pupils to enjoy teaching and learning, hospital beds and other quality healthcare delivery equipment and many equally important things the tax payer’s money could be used for.
The idle hands are those mostly found perpetrators of the ‘killing every where, gambling, mobile phones and bags snatching and other live threatening cases in the communities.
Creating employment avenues for the vulnerable ones in the society is also no doubt a key factor to ending many of these life threatening cases and more importantly, illegal migration.
It is becoming a normal formality in the country, that the Junior and Senior High School drop outs are those who mostly take the risks of journeying through the deserts and the high seas to look for better opportunities in Europe.
Majority are those who meet their untimely death, and no one can predict if such people could become owners of multimedia, big time contractors and engineers for the country in future.
The worry is that, aside the personal damages cause to the individual’s brain and sometimes deaths through drug addiction and migrating illegally, “the Nation suffer great economic lose since the addicts are economically nonproductive, but the scarce resources are being spent on them.
In addition to the phenomenom, countries noted for drug addicts and drug trafficking lose international gains and respects, resulting in embarrassment and humiliation.
Therefore, to have and boast of peaceful nation with responsible future leaders to manage things well for the unborn generation, government, security agencies, the traditional leaders and other opinion leaders should be up in doing, employ multi-sectoral approach to effectively tackle and eliminate the menace.