The Nigerian Drugs Pandemic: Are we Solving the Right problem with a Wrong Solution?

In the last 18 months world has been battling with COVID-19 pandemic, there is no doubt that this pandemic has affected social our socio- economic life but there is another form of pandemic that is ravaging our country that may be unknown to some of us and that is consumption of illicit drugs and dangerous substance.

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In this episode of Spark Podcast, Olukunle A. Iyanda, PhD., the CEO of BROOT consulting speak with Dr Andrew Nevin. Partner for financial services and Chief Economist of Price Waterhouse in Nigeria and the Founding Governor of Financial Center for sustainability; a body founded to promote sustainable finance in the capital market across Andrew is also a member of Advisory Board of Lagos Business School, he holds PhD in Economies from Harvard University and M.A in Philosophy and Politics from Oxford University. In 2011, Andrew was named the Strategy Consultant of the year by management Consultant association in UK.

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Olukunle A. Iyanda: We did a survey of recent and in our survey 85% of our respondent told us that from their observations and from what they read they think that consumptions of illicit drugs and dangerous substance has reached a pandemic level, what is your view on the consumption of illicit drugs and dangerous substances in Nigeria?

Andrew Nevin: Well, it’s always difficult to know the exact statistics on this and of course you know, people often believe you know, incorrectly things that are worse than they are but we know from the pandemic and we know from the economic situation; I mean everyone in Nigeria has been through enormous amount of stress and we know from around the world that when you’re under that stress, that your consumption of different kinds of drugs whether they’re legal or illegal for example, increases. So, I mean it’s not a surprise that in these conditions that we’re seeing that new consumption of illegal drugs in Nigeria increase. So, I think whether we call it a pandemic, I’m not sure of the exact words we would use when you need to get into kind of more detailed,, really numbers and analysis to know what’s really going on, so I think while it’s true that people believe that where things are getting worse, they probably aren’t getting works in this regard just need more understanding of  what’s happening

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you so much for that If we don’t call it pandemic what should we call it?  Do you consider it to be a problem for the country?

Andrew Nevin: I know, why do people take a substance, in many cases, we know around the world that when you’re in difficult conditions you’re more prone to these sorts of addictions and of course the addictions are not just to illicit drugs, coffee is the most consumed sort of mood-altering drug in the world. It’s not illegal though in some cultures and Mormon religion for example, you’re not allowed to drink coffee because of its effect and of course alcohol. Again, different religions have prohibitions on it, but it’s widely used around the world and its usage increases in difficult situations. So, in Nigeria, I mean, we have a situation where we’ve had enormous economic pressure, very high unemployment, particularly among the youth; it’s not a big surprise in these circumstances, people look for ways of coping and of course we’ve had the pandemic as well on that. I think that in the Nigerian context, it’s culturally complex, we have a lot of people that are kind of poorly educated, and these conditions are right for the use of illicit drugs and of course, I think, the drug of choice for many on the list, is tramadol.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Hmm, interesting, now when you look at it, do you think that there is a relationship between the consumption of drugs and social-economic development in Nigeria and can it impact productivity. What do you think is the impact of this actually?

Andrew Nevin: Well, like many things, the causality runs both ways. So, I think, as a starting point, if we take a step back for a minute before we discuss the kind of illicit consumption of drugs, what are we trying to accomplish in any society? I would argue we’re trying to accomplish good well-being for the people.  We want people to have a worthwhile life, so the term that I’ve used in Britain is about flourishing.  We want as many people as possible to flourish, now and taking illicit substances, mind altering substances being addicted to mind altering substances is inimical to flourishing. So, you don’t want people to feel the need to want to go out there and take mind altering substances but why did they do it? As I said you know they do it because they’re under stress because they had financial problems, they’re poorly educated, so if we want to address the issue of illicit drugs, in my view, taking it on, you know directly I mean the best two cause is to have socio economic development.

I mean if we had better education for young people, if we had more job opportunities that people felt more fulfilling and allowed them to live flourishing life, I think you would automatically get a reduction in consumption of illicit drugs. So, the high consumption in Nigeria is not the cause, it’s the consequence of the socio-economic development challenges that we that we have.

I mean you cited this number in your survey, that 69% of respondents agree that consumption of illicit drugs can negatively affect socio-economic development, that’s absolutely true, but if we don’t want people to consume illicit drugs, we need to start to improve the socio-economic development, including education. In this education is not young person who reaches adult hood or late teens, I mean it has to start when they’re 8,9 or 10 years old and discuss the terrible problems that come from taking these mind-altering drugs and becoming addicted to it.

At the same time, unless there’s a chance for people to see a future and a path forward, we’re still going to be drawn into this this terrible affliction.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you much Andrew. There is a report actually that shows that when you look at it globally,  while you have  global standard of  between 5.6% in terms of consumptions of drugs, however, when it comes to Nigeria is  between 15 and 20% you’ve talked about pressure, the social economic pressure, has led some of the youths in embracing the culture of going into illicit drugs however, if you spin it around, you also discover that there seems to be a trend among youth who are well off, who are above the poverty line, there seems to be a culture that make them to gravitate towards consumption of some of these substances. What is your view on that? what do you think is responsible for that, beyond the socioeconomic pressure?

Andrew Nevin: I mean in rich countries you have wealthy people that consume cocaine for example as a habit. I think you’re always going to have well off people who to some extents are a little bit bored and have too much money and kind of gravitate to that. I don’t think in the Nigerian context that that group of people at the higher socioeconomic levels it’s any bigger than other groups. I have to say in my 10 years of living in Nigeria, I find that the interest in illicit drugs is less than when I lived in Canada.  For example, among wealthier people, certainly the alcohol consumption is lower in Nigerian in my observation than in many other countries. I am in the UK about to return to Nigeria, at the moment, drinking alcohol is very deeply ingrained in the culture of the United Kingdom, so I don’t think on those dimensions that Nigeria has a culture that’s more prone to illicit narcotic addiction then others. It will be interesting to do kind of the real statistical analysis that is related to the socioeconomic issues, and you know what happens in different classes of society on that but I don’t think so.

I come from a country, of course, where the use of marijuana is legalized, there are companies that sell marijuana, it’s a business the government taxes.  Myself, I’ve never used marijuana and wouldn’t encourage it, but I think that’s been an excellent policy for us and of course, there’s some jurisdictions in United states where marijuana is also legalized you know thinking of Colorado. So, I mean from that viewpoint, I think some of these and of course in Portugal there is no drugs or are not being decriminalized so if someone has an addiction it’s not treated as a criminal matter. it’s as a medical matter or as a psychiatric matter and they’ve had much better results on that. So, I think that when we have this kind of concept of the war on drugs, in my believe, taking in the United States context, the war on drugs is being highly damaging or when you put literally hundreds of thousands of people and in very expensive jails ruining their lives over the consumption of something like marijuana and for what purpose? I mean they really serve no social purpose, so looking into harder drugs again you know what the purpose of criminalization is. In fact, I mean I think the governments, certainly in developed countries would be better off continuing to decriminalize these drugs and one of the reasons for it too is we have a lot of deaths that happen because when these things are driven underground and take illicit drugs, you don’t know what is in it. In fact, whereas if you had a more decriminalized system where what you know what you are actually taking, you do the cyclone narcotic effects of it, I think we would be better off but of course I don’t think Nigeria is ready for this discussion.  Though, I did see what I believe one of the honorable Minister did when he came out and make the same point that in fact the use of marijuana should be decriminalized but I haven’t seen a lot of discussion of this in in the Nigerian context. Then you also kind of Look again at the at the kind of Drug Enforcement policies and mechanisms in Nigeria, and again like a lot of things they don’t work perfectly, and you know. I worry that it’s interesting to think about what are the policies that would actually get young people off of drugs and we tend to have. this kind of draconian view that more law enforcement is going to have that end result, but I think the experience around the world have shown that’s in fact not true. So, I put that out for all of us to reflect on what would be the optimal policies with respect to the use of illicit drug? of course, we also recognize even if a drug is illegal from a from a framework for the standpoint from the legal framework of the country of course different religions have different views on it. You wouldn’t necessarily mean that that will be permitted of course in your religion.

Olukunle A. Iyanda:  I want us to look at, I mean, you mention cultural issues, there’s no doubt that that’s possibly influenced the policies on drugs in Nigeria. When you talk about drugs in Nigeria, I think Marijuana came first among other illicit substances. I’m glad you mentioned United States of America and approach to drug when you compare that with Canada. Another country that is very interesting is a place like Philippine, if you look at what is happening in Philippines, a lot of them are being killed or put in jail and yet the consumption has not abated, what is that one thing that you believe should be done in order to ensure that people are not unnecessarily criminalized, However that the consumption of drugs do also put stress on the health care facility?  For instance, in the US, they have rehab centers, I’m not sure of any rehab center in Nigeria, and yet the consumption of drugs continues. When we look at the issue of policy and we look at the facility, you know, the stress on the facility, our preparedness to even treat drug disorder, what do you think needs to be done in order to ensure that we have the right capacity to treat drug disorder. In order to ensure like you said people consume coffee and that is not a criminal offence, if it has to be decriminalized, what would you consider to be the best approach when it comes to the decriminalizing drugs usage?

Andrew Nevin: I think that is a very good question. To begin with obviously if something is decriminalized, it’s very difficult to mix the criminal justice system with healthcare system. So, someone is taking a hard drug, it’s affecting their health and that’s a crime.  They’re not going to be able to go to a health care facility ’cause the health care facility is now obligated to get the criminal justice system involved. I think that the model that the Colorado has is probably the right balance for Nigeria to aim at the medium term. You have Marijuana, as you said is the most used illicit product in the Nigerian context and it’s not harmless. But as you said, I think if we look at the experience in Canada, evidence show overall is beneficial and we haven’t seen increase in up-take. People who were taking marijuana when it was criminalized were taking when decriminalized, no more people took it when it was legalized. Again, when you go into the marijuana shops in Canada you precisely know the product you’re getting, you’re not in danger of buying a tainted or add alterative product, and having some, you know with terrible side effect from that, so that’s been very helpful and of course the increase in tax revenue to government; it is being very helpful. We don’t use police resources to worry about marijuana and then when you go to harder drugs again you have a step of not necessarily legalized well. I’m not sure that would be advantageous but at least decriminalizing its so if someone is addicted to heroin it is not a criminal but a medical issue and now when they go to the hospital, they have an interest in the individualized interest for this society. We have an interest as well, so few people having their lives destroyed by being addicted to these drugs can go through the process hopefully of being able to kind of break that addiction and return to kind of normal society but yeah that’s not something that’s possible to do while you’re also in the criminal justice system. So, if we look at the United states for example, I’m sure, people have seen the news of Purdue pharmaceuticals and over the years the tremendous addiction it was caused by oxy coating. So, you had Purdue pushing these pain relieving, lower mentis pain relieving pills. They put out tainted research that said that these were not addictive while they’re actually highly addictive and you know people then in their addiction led to many deaths and of course it was all mixed in together with the criminal justice system at the same time. So, taking it, you know, once you’re addicted you have to get this drug. And of course, they stopped prescribing so much of it so then you had illegal versions of the drugs. Everyone’s heard of Fentanyl, I’m, sure but now you’re trying to prevent someone dying from fentanyl overdose but at the same time, we’ve got the criminal justice system pursuing in the United States so that’s a real, a real contradiction. So I’m a firm believer, I think Portugal has shown based on what I’ve read about it very well that this decriminalization really helps  the society as a whole and of course it also it does another thing which is, it removes a lot of the you know the kind of gang warfare, the tremendous profits that the drug pushers yet I mean if you take them out of the equation it also helps with the problem of having less addicts. Obviously, Purdue as a company and individual drug dealers, you know they want to have a market that they want people to be able to sell too but when you decriminalize, take out some of the excess profits that go to the drug dealer so less people are kind of pushing the drugs and enticing young people to get to get addicted so I I’ve never seen any benefit from this criminalization the war on drugs. I mean if you look in there again in the US context, the impact of the war of drugs is not just in the United States but of course on the destabilizing Mexico, destabilizing Colombia, and Guatemala. I mean it’s just been enormous when I, you know, I hope other countries learn from that I mean the Philippines at the moment, I haven’t been to the Philippines for quite some time but again you read about them, you know what is the impact of all this kind of police action against suspected drug dealers right and of course it’s not  restricted to; there’s no trials there’s a lot of extradition, judicial killings right now under the present Filipino regime and again I don’t think as you said but it doesn’t have an impact that actually reduce the number of people that had taken drugs so we need to have a system where it’s treated as a medical issue not as a criminal issue. I mean obviously, we know what we know already but certainly as a result of COVID, we understand the need to strengthen our health care systems in Nigeria and as you strengthen healthcare anywhere, I was at an event yesterday with the Vice President, there was a lot of discussion about that. So, I think, it’s wide recognition of a better health care system and a better health care system will include components for helping young people, well anyone; not just young people but particularly young people must be able to get themselves off. But as I said, you cannot focus on the health issues around narcotics at the same time when you’re pursuing someone and putting them in jail.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: That’s really interesting I could see the you know the paradox, the contradiction between treating somebody as a criminal because of consumptions of an addictive substance and at the same time you’re talking of providing you know the necessary health care to be able to support that. Now, the question I have, again, you know, for you is what do you, if today a consumption of marijuana, is you know decriminalized like they have in Canada do you think there is economic benefits of that to the country?

Andrew Nevin: Well, I think that the Colorado and till date experiences have shown we first get a benefit because you are not expending police resources to do, you know, chase down people that smoke marijuana. You’re not putting people that smoke marijuana into jail so you get a benefit that way and reduction must pass. You get in another industry that’s producing a product that’s used, that pays taxes so I think it has been beneficial, but I think what’s interesting and certainly, the community in context is I don’t think there was some expectation that you would get an increased consumption when you decriminalized or legalized; not just decriminalized but legalized marijuana in Canada. There was some thinking that you get an increase in consumption so there was to quite some predictions about the size of the industry and the tax revenue generated for the government. As it turns out, yes, they’ve generated tax revenue but no more people are smoking marijuana, so the tax benefit, the tax revenue for the government wasn’t quite high as predicted; that’s fine, it’s not like we want more people smoking marijuana on that and I think we’ve reached a very good spot in Canada.  I mean it’s also interesting, I have to say, I don’t, you know I meant I’m not quite sure how this works in Nigerian strictly the current generation of young people, so in North America and even in the UK for example, they actually consume less alcohol, less drugs than their parents. So you go back to what I said about, for example, alcohol in United Kingdom is very deeply entrenched cultural institution for many people in the United Kingdom, the pub, Friday afternoon after work or pacing performer games at the pub, for example, but this generation, actually, less people consume, so I think in certainly developed nation. One reason they may be consuming a lot, of course, as this, there’s so much anxiety, I mean in my generation, we came out, I had the privilege to have a university education, we thought the future was secure, you can get a good job, you know the future look bright, so you didn’t worry much and you ended up consuming. You know, my case, alcohol often not covered drugs but think drug consumption of course in the 60s and 70s was higher than today. Today, young people in developed nations, I mean look at all of the socio economic challenges in Nigeria for young people but the reality is, in developed nations young people are very worried about their future, not being able to get a job, not knowing what’s going to happen with climate change for example so one of the consequences of that is this generation actually consumes less alcohol and less drugs than the boomer generation which is interesting. So, you know, I don’t think that we should worry about that if we go down the path in any country, is kind of like some realization some decriminalization, I don’t think the evidence suggests that that leads to a huge spike in the use of use of drugs.

Olukunle A. Iyanda I think the Canadian, the Canada case has given us the beckon of hope because I follow very closely when it was legalized, I thought maybe, there would be an upsurge in the consumptions. However, glad to hear that there have not been upsurge consumptions at the same time, the government is able to benefit by generating revenue even though that is not the major focus. Beyond that we have seen other industry, that cropped up as a result of this. Very interesting analysis, I must say. Now I need to ask you, If there is going to be one radical policy change that you will recommend based on experience, trends and possibly research in the Nigerian context, what will that uncommon policy recommendation be from your end?

Andrew Nevin: Well, I think the way I would approach it, I think Nigeria would benefit from having a more honest conversation about illicit drugs. I mean, what tends to happen, I think, in Nigeria, I mean other places as well, because we observe it every day as people say pandemic and drugs; young people tend taking drugs, we need more draconian measures that are going to try to take care of this and discourage young people and I don’t I think that we’re lacking kind of the root cause analysis so when you think about it, I mean currently your business, I know you’re a leader in the country in terms of kind of lateral and creative thinking.  So, we have this very linear thinking process about illegal drugs, and we don’t have really any leadership from the most senior most senior political leaders. I think, sorry, what I think were slacked back on who is advocating for the decriminalization marijuana maybe one of the governors and not an official of the federal government but I think what would be the starting point is for the most senior members of the federal government to come out and say you know we recognize we have a challenge with list drugs we want to get to the root cause of this and not have like an easy solution. I mean, to be honest it’s one of the things that drove at the very destructive behavior in the United States and its war on drugs is of course, money ’cause you announce a warrant drugs as President Bush did and then you end up funding the Drug Enforcement agencies and they are happy you know, take the money and buy all their fancy toys to track down drug dealers and of course they’re that encouraged to say there’s a huge drug problem because the bigger the drug problem the bigger their budgets and the more people they put  in jail, the bigger their budgets and United States in having the private prisons. People that run private prisons are always encouraging incarceration of people provider expenses and you get this entire machinery on the war, on drugs that people who benefit from human misery, so that’s a very negative place to get into. But in the Nigerian context, if the federal government could lead a conversation that says look, let’s have a very thoughtful approach to you First off and let’s understand what’s actually happening on the ground so you cited some statistics about people’s beliefs. We all have beliefs about this situation but you know, let’s get better numbers on what’s happening on the ground, how many young people are affected, how  are they affected what are the drugs that are affecting them, how are they coming in so get a better baseline? and then ask the question you know “what’s again the root cause of this right? and if they work ’cause as I said,  and its largely because of the economic challenges that we’re having  or  lack of education then we need to focus on that and it’s a central government lead that should lead the conversation I think, for us to get away from these kind of draconian solutions that haven’t been effective elsewhere. Again, I mean, of course, the security forces in Nigeria are no different than the security forces in the United states in this regard, if they see a budgetary opportunity by talking about this war on drugs or you know the terrible scourge “free for young people” and we can fix it by enforcement by putting people in jail then they’re going to pursue that for, you know, really, for economic reasons and despite the traditional cost. So, I think that’s the starting point for it. I mean in terms of just a practical policy again that I’m not gonna advocate in this context that the country measures act considers to criminalization of hard drugs, but I think it may be worth it, as the governor said; one of the governors that I believe to consider decriminalizing marijuana. I mean he went further and actually said legalize it, ’cause he had been looking at the example of Canada, Netherlands of Colorado and you know. So, if the government wanted to consider the legalization of just marijuana, I think that would be an important step. But this real starting point for me, is a more honest conversation about how does this, you know the real root cause of the drug challenges what we have and getting away from just this kind of more draconian and particularly because a lot of things is tied when you have these illegal activities and particularly in Nigerian context again your money plays such a big role, so of course, the drug dealers, people that want to import drugs, have ways to protect themselves; ways of dealing with the customs so the customs people, the Drug Enforcement people aren’t necessarily always applying the rules evenly in this case because again they’re made by the lure of money. You know one of the things that really helped in Canada is once they legalize marijuana, the pricing list very transparent, the price comes down, you add some tax so the government gets some benefits, so you don’t have the incentive as I said, for tremendous gangs of criminals to get involved. So yes, I said we have had a very positive experience in Canada with this brilliant.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you so much, you talked about you need to start honest conversation, um from the cultural view point you know there are some things that probably are difficult to start; and a place like Nigeria, for example, the issue of sex is one of it even though many parents, you know got involved in a premarital sex or you know for a long time you don’t want to discuss sex with your kids you don’t want them to be involved in premarital sex; very topical issue. Another issue is the issue of drug consumptions, like you said, we’ve seen parents taking alcohol or taking drugs and yes, they don’t want their kids to be involved. We have seen law enforcement agencies, officers, we have seen people in government being involved in consumptions of drugs, yet they are the one at the forefront of consumption of illicit drugs, what do we call this?

Andrew Nevin:  Well, there is always an element of hypocrisy and in this, as you say, I mean, lots of very wealthy and very powerful people around the world including supposed holding public officer. OK! and you know I’ve never been interested or done it myself but when you’re aware of very senior people who do it and there is a form of hypocrisy and of course I mean you go back and again ,the United states for  example, of the prohibition, so people may be aware, I think from 1922, I’ll just check, they tried to prevent alcohol in the in the United states, it was a hit, was an amendment to the constitution attack and eventually got reversed but of course had spawned all sorts of criminal activity and many of the people who voted for prohibition uh they voted for it as a politician but they consumed alcohol right so they would be voting on one hand for this prohibition and they would be going down to the Speakeasy and where they were consuming. Now an illegal substance and others, in school, tremendous hypocrisy of that, so there was a banned from 1920 to 1933 and of course, this fund all sorts of criminal activity and actually Canada was the beneficiary of this. So what would happen is that Windsor, which is just across the border from Detroit, would produce, you know major distilleries of whiskey and they would then take a boat and the people on the Canadian side who were the customs officers  where they are taking the alcohol they’d say Cuba, taking this alcohol tequila while the boat would Canadians are fine, it’s nothing illegal about that from a Canadian point, so the boat would go away and then an hour later, it would dropped off its cargo on the US side to the bootleggers. There and it would come back and refill again and we have the same customer officer who sent this boat off to Cuba but it’s back in an hour and it’s refilled again, where you going? we’re going to Cuba so we built huge businesses so higher Walker is one of the major still global distillers and it was based in winter exactly ’cause of prohibition so you breed criminal elements on that and of course you know we all are aware of the story. For example Al Capone in Chicago,  I mean, I don’t think the world has a great experience with these prohibitions on that and certainly, there the USA alcohol for example. The marijuana example shows some of the benefits when things are legalized and you’re much more able to treat so now we obviously have alcohol addictions also tremendous problem for some people but you are like, you can treat it, when it’s not illegal the consumption of alcohol is not illegal.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you so much, it’s a great honor to have you on this program. Thank you for your insight. As we wrap up now, I want you to just leave us with just one word, one statement rather, regarding drug consumptions in Nigeria, you said so much but can you just give us, you know and a common insight.

Andrew Nevin: I genuinely believe if we make progress with the future for young people in Nigeria, the illicit drug issue will take care of itself, it will fade away.

Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you, thank you so much, It’s a great privilege to have you, we enjoy your insights and I believe we will share this with all our audience and from there if there are questions or anything we are going to deal with it and I believe that this is going to lead to honest conversations around drug consumptions in Nigeria. Thank you so much again for being on this program. Thank you

Andrew Nevin: Thank you Dr Kunle .

Ife Adeagbo:  Thanks for listening to this  episode of the Spark by BROOT consulting. To subscribe to the show on iTunes, stitcher or via RSS head over to www.brootc.com/spark  so you never miss a show, while you are at it, if you found value  we would appreciate a rating or simply tell a friend or colleague about the show that will help us out! You might also want to check out our open workshop for this month or favorite sources and materials on our website www.brootc.com

About the author(s)

• Olukunle A. Iyanda, PhD is the Chief Executive Officer of BROOT consulting.
• Andrew S. Nevin, PhD is the Partner – Financial Services Leader and Chief Economist at PwC Nigeria,
• Adeola Ojoawo, PhD is BROOT Consulting Director of Strategy& Growth