Buba Marwa, Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), has said 4.5 million people in Lagos State are involved in illicit drugs.
Marwa, a former military administrator of Lagos State, stated this during a visit to the Lagos NDLEA command on Tuesday.
The NDLEA Chairman claimed that the state accounts for 30 per cent of the total number of drug abusers in the country.
“In the country, an estimate of 15 million people belong to one or more aspects of illicit drug dealing. This means about 4.5 million people in Lagos state are into illicit drugs,” the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quoted Marwa as saying.
The NDLEA Chairman also said there are about one million patent medicine stores in the country, but noted that the majority of such facilities are not properly registered and have aided the sale of illicit drugs.
He said: “Out of the figure, only 58,000 patent medicine outlets are registered, while about one million others remain unregistered. This has really enhanced sales of illicit drugs in the state.
“It is only through the combined efforts of all the officers that the agency can win the fight against drugs.”
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