Once the preserve of hardened criminals, abuse of drugs like codeine and others is on the rise, especially among married women in the North, as well as teenagers. Daily Trust takes a look at the disturbing trend.
Fadeela, 18, is helpless. She is addicted to Tutolin, a codeine-containing cough syrup she consumes at least twice a day. Two bottles per day is what her system demands or it may just shut down. This has done great harm to her life already. She has since dropped out of school and now spends time at Mami Market in the city of Sokoto.
At Mami Market, both male and female addicts - mostly in their twenties - have found a haven where they freely indulge in using a variety of substances to get ‘high’. But Fadeela is fed-up with the control it has over her. It has estranged her family from her. “If you can help me out of this life, I will ever be grateful,” she says.
Recently, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) decried the increasing involvement of married women in drug abuse. The Assistant Superintendant in charge of exhibits at the Sokoto State Command, Ali Baba Mustapha, pointed out at the Jigawa Day celebration that women take cough syrups that contain codeine - an opiate used to treat pain - more than any segment of the society, believing erroneously that it will enhance their sexual appetite. He warned that if unchecked, the trend could lead to marital problems and even divorce. There are, also, attendant health problems.
Daily Trust investigations revealed that the stability of some homes is already being affected by this trend. There is the case of a new bride whose husband discovered under their bed, a carton of Tutolin, usually abused to induce intoxication and supposedly boost sexual drive. It was gathered that the groom took both his wife and the drugs to her parents’ house in anger. Even before then, during the wedding, the loss of a necklace had prompted a search that led to the astonishing discovery that some of the women at the occasion, mostly housewives, had varieties of cough syrup containing codeine in their handbags.
