By Emmanuel Oti Acheampong
The rate at which the abuse of drugs by the youth in the country is upsurging and is really becoming a menace.
Days ago, the shortage of super glue, a bonding substance in Techiman, due to its inhalation by the youth, got the whole country talking, with some advocacies flying through without structure like an organisational grapevine.
It caught everyone’s attention, especially the majority of people whose only ideas about drug abuse are marijuana, cigarettes, and crack. The question that comes to mind when one hears about the abuse of ‘unexpected’ drugs is “How did they get to know of this”? I guess it becomes a long or scalar chain of origin if we are to delve deep into its root. An observation made into this menace will result in the conclusion that majority of these abusers are within the range of 18–27 years old, and just a handful are into serious monthly salaried jobs or are students, while majority may be those in the ‘self-employed’ business such as okada riding, bus driver’s assistants, and possibly hawkers. This is not to say that all employees in such businesses are abusers.
Much won’t be spoken of the causes because they are everywhere and a new churn of causes keeps shooting up in the minds and on the lips of these abusers.
Kuntunse-Satellite, a community within the Amasaman Constituency in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, has over the years had its share of youth abusing unsuspecting ‘legal’ drugs. Legal in the sense that they are FDA approved, used, and prescribed by certified medical practitioners.
An observation made by the reporter indicated a shortage of cough syrup in the Kuntunse-Satellite community. A community known to be a growing elite settlement characterised by dwellers who are into all kinds of distinct professions is having its ‘promising’ youth shrink away in the name of ‘highness’.
An interview with a Medical Counter Assistant within the community disclosed that they sell boxes of different grades of cough syrup within a week or days and sometimes run short of supply. She also disclosed that the likes of ‘Benylin Original’, Letalin Expectorant’, ‘Koffex Cough Syrup’, and ‘Samalin Adult’ are the brands that are highly in demand, aside from the popular ‘Codeine’.
In addition, she mentioned that the majority of those who purchased these cough syrups are between the ages of 17 and 25 and are school dropouts who are into Okada riding. She mentioned that some drugs cost as much as GH¢150.00, yet people buy them. Some also come to put a price barrier on them to deter others from purchasing them.
On her account with some of them, she explained that they mostly buy it to mix with Coke, fruit juices, and other carbonated drinks just to get high. In response to whether or not she advises them medically, she bemoaned a reduction in sales and threat if she dares advise any. She also explained that some drugs are not put on the counter because they are not to be sold by some level of pharmaceutical drug retailers.
A shocking revelation made by a victim was that, after mixing their soft drinks with the cough syrups, they either ground Tramadol or Paracetamol to powder and added it to increase their level of highness.
This incessant use and abuse of cough syrups by the youth and Okada Riders at Kuntunse-Satellite has seen parts of the pharmacies and over-the-counter medical stores run short of them, as well as the high prices of the available ones, which are of high milligrams and grades.
