Drug Abuse and its Devastating Effect on Youths and their Contribution towards Nation Building

The problem of substance abuse is so great that though it was originally conceived as the problem of a 'select few', it has extended beyond the usual characteristics of abusers being male, adult and urban based people to now include female, youngsters and rural dwellers. The accompanying problems of this act constitute a major threat to the well-being of the society if not checked immediately. This study is exploratory and it uses psychosocial theory of drug abuse dependence to explain the use of substance abuse in Nigeria. The study established that majority of young people engage in drug addiction in the search of pleasure to alter their state of consciousness. It also shows that people abuse drugs for the enhancement of good feelings and used it as a means of coping with stress in life. Drugs abuse according to the  study appears to be common among males with 94.2% while females have 5.8%, and the age of first use is between 10-29 years. The use of volatile organic solvents is 0.53%. The record of drugs abuse in Nigeria as established by the study shows that the Northwest has a statistics of 37.47% of the drug victims in the country, while the Southwest has been rated second with 17.32%, the South-east was rated third with 13.5%, North-central has 11.71%, while the North-east zone has 8.54% of the drug users in the country. The study conclude that drug abuse is a social problem basically associated with young people and therefore recommends that, youths have to be kept busy at all time and also greater availability of good educational activities, material and leadership opportunities are necessary to curtail youths restiveness.