By Dayo Adesulu
Students are warned to abstain from the use of cannabis,adding that its usage has long term effects of problems associated to memory loss and learnings.
Director, Treatment and Rehabilitation, NDLEA, Ikoyi, Mrs.
Felicia Ikechukwu who spoke during Wellspring College 14th valedictory service/graduation ceremony said: “Cannabis is being used by some students in some schools to prepare nodules, thinking it is right because it looks like a vegetable.”
Describing cannabis as a psychoactive drug, she explains that when one takes it, he or she will become the substance user.
She said:”The long term effects include: “Problems with memory and learning, decreased motivation and concentration, increased risk of respiratory diseases, feeling undue suspicion of others (Paranoia) and seeing or hearing things that do not exist or are distorted (Psychosis).”
According to NDLEA, names for cannabis in Nigeria include: “Igbo, weewee, weed, marijuana, Mary and Joan, choko, yoyo, kush, skunk, green leaf, ghanja, grass, Indian hemp, blaze, taba, ndedeko, bendel market, joint, pot and genye”
She therefore urged the graduating students not to take drinks from some of their friends as they go to the wider world where everything happens.
The guest speaker who decried the rate of crime in our society, also noted that the use of cannabis makes youths destroy themselves, kill, prostitute and steal.
She said though alcohol, kolanuts is socially acceptable, adding that those substances have addictives which is on the central nervous system (brain).
She explained that on the brain there is the pleasure center which rework things, stressing that the brain is likened to transformers of the body without which no person can function.
She said: “The brain has five senses and anything added to it destroys some of this senses. The rework centre has a chemical known as dopamine. “When one take this substance, the dopamine will be released and this make the person feel pleasurable and then feel like going back to it over and over again.
“That is why people still go back into substance use even after treatment.”
She, therefore urged the graduands not to go into it, stressing that when they do, they keep going back into it.
