There is a quiet, heavy atmosphere whenever the subject of youth drug abuse comes up—the kind of discomfort that makes people shift in their seats. According to Misryoum, Buba Marwa, the Chairman of the NDLEA, recently laid out some numbers that honestly just feel exhausting to process. While speaking at the University of Abuja’s convocation, he pointed out that more than 60 percent of the people arrested for drug-related offenses over the last five years are young.
Not just older kids, but actual teenagers. Some of these individuals are barely fifteen years old, which is a detail that sticks with you—or at least it should. The agency has seen 48,836 people pass through their counseling facilities, and the vast majority are young. It is a staggering amount of lost potential, really. Marwa didn’t mince words about what a criminal record does to a career in law or medicine. It’s basically a door slamming shut before you’ve even had the chance to knock.
Then there’s the shift in what’s actually being used. It isn’t just the old-school substances anymore; now it’s all about these synthetic things—Colorado, Loud, and Meth. The way these drugs are moving through social media is changing the game entirely. It’s almost like, well, it’s just getting too easy to find this stuff, and that’s a terrifying thought for any parent or educator.
Young people between 25 and 39 seem to be at the center of this storm, though the experimentation starts much earlier, often around 19. Or sometimes younger. It’s a messy, complex reality where cultism, campus violence, and just a plain lack of clear-headedness all feed into each other. You need a sober mind for the tech-driven world we live in, but how do you keep that when the pressure to fit in is so loud?
Marwa told the students, “If your friends require you to be ‘high’ to belong, you are in the wrong company.” It’s standard advice, maybe, but delivered with the weight of someone watching the prison intake numbers grow daily.
He also spent time talking about the ripple effects. It’s not just the kid using; it’s the families drained of savings, the schools losing their reputations, and the community dealing with the fallout. The smell of stale coffee and the hum of the air conditioner in the auditorium must have made the whole thing feel strangely mundane given the severity of the news—the mundane contrast to a very serious crisis. Misryoum notes that the agency is pushing for better surveillance on campuses, hoping that colleges will take drug education as seriously as the degree itself. It’s a start, but the scope of the problem is… well, it’s just a lot to handle.