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Ghana: Fighting Drugs - Some Critical Considerations
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Public Agenda (Accra)
OPINION
18 July 2008
Posted to the web 18 July 2008
Daniel Akwasi Amankwaah
Drug abuse is one of the serious threats of our day. In 1987, Dr. Javier Peres De Cuellar, former U.N. Secretary General warned: "Drug abuse is a time bomb ticking away in the heart of civilization we must now find measures to deal with it before it explodes and destroy us."
Is this "prophesy" being fulfilled? Is Ghana safe? Is the Narcotics Control Board capable of protecting the nation from the scourge of drugs? How are drug abuse and illicit drug trafficking being controlled in Ghana? These are some of the issues raised in this write-up.
"Drugs" may refer to many substances but for the purposes of this article, the focus is on marijuana, heroin, cocaine and psychotropic substances including alcohol. Note also that in this article "he" stands for "she".
How drugs work in the body
Drugs are smoked, injected, sniffed or drunk. Whatever the means of administration, there is one result. Drugs enter the bloodstream and then the troubles begin. I want to use Marijuana to illustrate how this happens.
Marijuana has about 101 nicknames: abonsam tawa, tampe, ganja, wee, yen, grass, cool, weed of wisdom, weed, pot, grass cannabis, hash, hashish, Indian hemp etc. There are about 400 chemicals in the marijuana plant. The active ingredient in the plant is called delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinnol (Delta-9).
Marijuana is mostly smoked. The chemicals are in the smoke. The smoke first goes to the lungs. Through absorption, the delta-9 enters the blood stream. In the body there are receptors. The receptors for delta-9 are mostly found in the brain, the spinal cord and around the reproductive organs. These delta-9 receptors, as their names go, receives the delta-9 which has been absorbed into the blood.
This means that the delta-9 will be collected in the brain, the spinal cord and around the reproductive organs. The drugs will stay in the body for about 30 days. This is the beginning of troubles.
The spinal cord and the brain constitute the central nervous system (CNS). The CNS controls feeling, emotion, judgment, inhibition etc. Depending on certain other factors, a person on marijuana may therefore behave in many unusual ways.
Some may be excited others may be depressed. If he is a driver, he may decide to overtake in a curve, or use the shoulder of the road while all other decent drivers are in a queue. He may speed even though there is a narrow bridge ahead and plunge his bus into a river killing innocent people. He may even decide not to stop when the traffic light is red. All these happen because his judgment is impaired.
He may have high sexual appetite and at the same time very low inhibitions and therefore will not consider raping a three year old person. He may hear voices and see images that are not real. There are many things that can happen to a person who smokes marijuana but if these are all the problems associated with marijuana there will not be much cause for alarm.
As the person smokes, his body becomes used to the drugs. Very soon he cannot stop. He is addicted to the drugs. He becomes a slave to the drugs. Further, if he started with one roll or joint, as the users call it, that one roll will not be enough for him so he has to graduate from one roll to two and from two to three till he smokes several rolls or joints a day. As he continues, he becomes physically addicted. This means that when he stops smoking marijuana he becomes sick. This is actual slavery but is it just slavery?
If the person is using other drugs like cocaine and heroin, the person goes through similar process of the drug entering the bloodstream, the effects on the central nervous system and addiction. However, with cocaine and heroin the intensity of these processes, especially addiction, is far greater than that of marijuana.
Addiction: a horrendous factor
Addiction to drugs is one of the horrendous things that can happen to anybody. It is the main source of the crimes associated with drugs. Drugs like cocaine and heroin are very addictive and at the same time expensive. When a person is addicted to drugs he cannot stop so if he needs the drugs he has to find money.
Stealing and armed robbery
He may start by stealing from the house but very soon "small" moneys cannot buy the drugs he needs. He needs big and quick money. He has to do what will bring big and quick money. He may join armed robbery groups. Before they go on "operations" to get money to sustain their drug use the armed robbers will have to take away human instincts or mercy from their hearts so that when they are killing they will not have any feelings at all. How are they going to do that?
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They will take some of the drugs. The drugs will affect their CNS and change the inhibitions associated with normal human beings. This will enable them rob and even kill their own parents just to use the money for more drugs and the cycle goes on and on.
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