By Jacob J. Kanga
According to the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Mr. Ibrahim Kargbo, NDLEA is the only institution mandated to regulate and monitor laws against narcotic drugs in Sierra Leone intimating that the institution has developed and prepared a five (5-year) strategic plan 2022 to 2025 that seeks to address substance abuse and illicit drugs trafficking in Sierra Leone.
He made the disclosure on Wednesday 12th January 2022 at NDLEA’s Walpole Street headquarters in Freetown.
According to Mr. Ibrahim Kargbo, they have employed strategies by engaging the public, communities and schools’ visitation and civil society organizations to see how they can reduce drug abuse and confessed that the institution has invited key stakeholders to work together to mitigate drug abuse.
He continued that between January to March 2022 the Strategic Narcotics Drug Abuse Plan would be launched disclosing that plans are also underway to review the Drug Control Act of 2008 because it has become obsolete and assured that the review would commence between now and June to among others get enforcement power from parliament to arrest, detain and investigate drug-related matters enlightening that the statutory instrument has been tabled in parliament by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
Mr. Ibrahim Kargbo went on to inform that they are also looking for support from ECOWAS to help them launch the strategic plan and that the Psychiatrist Hospital at Kissy was rehabilitated and refurbished by ECOWAS to admit affected drug patients free of cost concluding by reminding the public that the data they are receiving from the mental home is that most of the patients they treat for drug abuse are between the ages of 15 to 38 which is not encouraging for the country adding that such patients are seriously affected by the abuse of marijuana, ‘kush’ and tramadol in addition to psychiatric substances such as cocaine and locally produced alcohol.