Let's get high

                           

For some time now I have rarely had the motivation to write, but I feel am in a good mood today. So let’s get high.

So what are we getting high on? Hard drugs, weeds, cough syrup, ganja, cocaine, petrol fumes, and sewage fumes, just name it. Because today we are getting high.

Today I read an article that spurred me to write this piece. By the grace of God, I have traveled extensively through the length and breadth of this country. Through these travels, I discovered one thing peculiar to Nigerians is our love for having a good time. Be it in the church, mosque or bar. We all love the fun times.

Good times and fun times mean so many different things to different people. To some it is the time of drinking, smoking and womanizing, which fills them with a sense of euphoric joy and happiness hence the term getting high. And it is to this category of persons I wish to talk about today.

Whereas getting high and catching fun seems to be universal, the means or what we decide to get high on varies. For instance, in the south east of Nigeria, getting high may mean consuming some bottles of alcoholic beverage, with some spirits, marijuana and loose women. In the north, consumption of alcoholic beverages or its kind is not the norm, rather the get high on cough syrups, marijuana and loose women. In the west and down south south it’s a combination of all of the above if not a little more advanced with cocaine inclusive. Now the latest from abroad is anal alcohol lavage. Some college kids felt they weren’t getting high as fast as they  wanted and so wanted to try the anal route because with its vast blood supply, absorption of the alcohol into the blood stream will be faster and the will get high quicker. So it’s a crazy world we got out there with young people experimenting on all kind of things in other to get high.

Growing up as a kid, it was a kind of taboo to see female smokers. Today, it is like if a girl is not smoking, then she doesn’t fit in. The incidence rate of female smokers is on the increase in Nigeria and still rising. I won’t delve into the effects of smoking on women today. However the message is loud and clear. So ‘she’, who has an ear, let her hear.

Before now, Nigeria seemed to be only a transit route for drug pushers but today we are gradually degenerating into drug users. Cocaine was just some white powdery substance seen in movies. Today it is in our streets and its abuse is quite on the rise. The number of young people who have experimented on cocaine in this country is quite alarming and I hope we are getting prepared to face the consequences of a drug consuming nation.

Getting high on marijuana- Today getting marijuana is like going to the market to buy vegetable for soup. People no longer hide to smoke weed. Some even use it cook like it is some anti cancer medication. I want to buttress this point with a story. I once went to visit a friend, and then went to the refrigerator to get some cool water to drink. I saw some ice-cream containers in the fridge and I was like wow! We got some ice-cream here, only to open the containers and to my astonishment, it was filled with weeds, all three containers. Now the guy wasn’t even ashamed of the weeds in his possession and neither was he showing any sign of guilt. And before I could say jack, his partners arrived and they all got high on weeds.

The bizarre- getting high on the abnormal. In the course of my travel to some states of the north, I never had the slightest idea that people now use over the counter cough syrups to get high. Because the north is predominantly Islam which doesn’t tolerate alcohol consumption, they now resort to abuse of cough syrups in order to get high. One day I sat with a patent medicine dealer confessed that selling cough syrup can be as profitable as someone selling crack in the streets of America. Most times, they create artificial scarcity of the product leading to an increase in demand and subsequently increase in price of the drugs. On another occasion, I went to hang out with a friend at a bar, here comes in a pretty lady who is on the big side. She is un accompanied so while we were still contemplating on who will strike up a conversation with her, she opens her hand bag pulls out two bottles of a cough syrup and orders for cigarettes. She gulps down the two bottles in quick succession and continues with her smoking and after about five sticks of cigarette, she pulls out another two bottles from her hand bag settles for them in quick succession, thereafter stands up and leaves the bar. By this time almost everybody in our section of the bar was like wow! What just happened? This then led to everyone sharing some thought on the event. Were i deduced that it was now a very common thing around. Girls these days just don’t want to smoke, but want to get high on cough syrup as well. So as the discussions continued, other substances being abused in Nigeria were mentioned and I discovered I was still living in the dark ages while people have moved on to other substances like sewage fumes and petrol fumes. This got surprised, as I found it utterly unbelievable. My companion opined that it was quite rampant in the northern part of Nigeria, where you could see young men put their nostrils to gallons of petroleum inhaling the fumes that emanate from them. Then in the case of the sewage, they adjust the vent of the sewage or plug a pipe down the sewer and inhale the fumes. I found this disgusting and wandered what our country was turning to, what is happening to humanity, is this some form of evolution of man or is just share stupidity by juveniles.

Now, if substance abuse has gotten this far, what then will be the role of the drug enforcement agents, how will they cope with this emerging trend? Because, they are mostly focused on getting those selling weed or transporting hard drugs within and outside the country. How can they fight this emerging problem? It is just obvious that the war on illicit drugs and narcotics has to take a new dimension. A dimension which is holistic, involving every fabric of the society starting from the family down to the religious leaders, law enforcement agencies, government and traditional institutions. If this emerging trends are left unchecked, we will be gradually degenerating into a psychological disturbed society. Little wonder there are increasing cases of psychosis, suicides and attempted suicide, and societal unrest. After ingesting all these substances, the youth will not respect the elders anymore and the sense of differentiating right from wrong will be lost, Which is what makes man different from other animals.

My worry about the use of illicit drugs, narcotics and the likes is not in the using of these substances but on the effects thereafter. Because once one is high on drugs or narcotics and feeling aerie, you are no longer in charge of your senses, and capable of endangering your life and that of those around you.

How many people have we lost to accidents associated with driving under the influence? That is why we must commend the efforts of the Lagos state government who have introduced the use of breathalyzers to check motorist who may be driving under the influence. And am wondering why the federal road safety has not adopted such measures as an integral part of their job description and leave the job of checking vehicle particulars to the police.

What about the number of cases of rape recorded yearly? How do you explain young boys raping women of their grand-parents age or even their great grandparent’s age . When you get high on petrol fumes and sewage fumes what do you expect? 

The ills associated with the use of narcotics, weeds, and illicit substances are just numerous to mention. An armed robber high on these things can’t listen to any plea of mercy. Who knows the ones used by suicide bombers that make them numb to the reality that they are about to lose their lives.

As I ponder through these things, I deduce that this lies at the root of the family. Family values are gradually disappearing with the mad quest to meet up with the Jones financially, high incidence rate of divorce, increasing number vagabonds in the society learning to survive in the streets without knowing their parents or the government having plans for the homeless and destitute. In bid to cope with these challenges and stress, they now resort to the abuse of these substances to get high and ease off.

Through this article I aim to raise awareness on these issues and re-emphasize the obvious. Our nation today is on a brink and our society is decaying faster. Moral values are all but gone and if we don’t act fast and rise to this challenge, we may one day wake up to find individuals not in control of their senses handling the affairs of our beloved country.

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