With a visit to the beach, night clubs,
beer bars, and parties in various parts of the country, one can easily
conclude that drug addiction is on the rise. Going through the various
courts of the country, one will be surprised to note that about 40% of
criminal offences are on the use or possession of drugs, especially
marijuana.
Many of the youth have ended up spending
part of their lives in prison due to the use or possession of drugs. As
the addict sees himself or herself as always being right, they go to
jail and perfect their addiction in drugs.
Drug addiction is adversely affecting the
prospects of the youth in the country, especially, in the case of boys.
Many junior high and senior schools in the country have become a place
of initiation to drug addiction for the youth. Drug addiction in Ghana
is always said to have great effect on the country and its future, but
its effect on the family is rarely spoken about or thought of.
Imagine sending your intelligent ward to a
boarding school to study to become a great person in future for you to
become proud of, and all of a sudden after four months, comes home
looking out of place. He looks unhealthy, lacks focus, is visionless and
begins acting almost the opposite of what you taught of him, or how you
brought him up to be. Sadness, grief and disappointment will be the
first emotion, even though the reason behind his or her attitude would
have not yet been figured out.
Families and drug addicts
In the early part of this month, at an
Accra circuit court, a man, who seemed to in his late twenties, was
convicted to five years in prison for using one wrapper of marijuana.
When he was convicted and asked if he had anything to say about his
charge of using a narcotic drug, he said, “marijuana has been my daily
bread for quite a long time now. I cannot live without it. And in fact, I
use it every day.”
For many addicts, it is impossible to
free themselves from the bondage of drugs, since their level of
addiction has taken over the better part of them for many years. In the
case of this man who was convicted to five years in jail, he said he had
no family to be with him in court, and from the look of things, his
family might not even be aware that he has been convicted, since they
don’t even know his whereabouts.
Many families, due to the level of
stigmatisation by society, tend to alienate themselves from their
relations when they realise they have become drug addicts. When the
addict has no job or has been fired from his job because of his
addiction, he tends to rely solely on the family for his livelihood.
Unfortunately, as time goes on, the family gets tired of fending him due to the addict’s frequent spending of money on drugs.
The members of the family then decide to
wash their hands off him, which gradually leads him to the streets. He
either joins a gang of drug users to enable him get the drug for free,
or engage in crime to cater for his addiction.
Many families in Ghana tend to shun the
addict, while some are disowned, since the family does not want to bear
any kind of disgrace from society. It is even assumed that the
probability of someone in the family losing his or her suitor is high,
since drug addiction is considered to be inherent, and that it runs
through a family.
For the caring families who never give
up, they never stop seeking help for their wards, as some goes to the
extent of losing most of their possessions and money just to get a cure.
In Ghana, many so-called pastors have taken advantage of the situation,
and succeeded in convincing many families that drug addiction is a
demonic attack, which can only be solved by special spiritual prayers
and fasting.
They go ahead and charge these families
huge amounts of money to solve the situation, which in the long run,
sometimes worsens. Some attempt herbal medicines, while others try their
luck on spiritualists.
Effect of drug addicts on the family
Having a drug addict in the family in a
way does not make it a happy one, especially, in the case of a husband
or a father. The husband or father is the head of every household, and
imagine the father who the family looks up to, and even see as a role
model, engaging into drugs. As an addict, he sees his actions to be
always right and never considers corrections or suggestions.
He becomes the total decision maker of
the family, and as time goes on, friction in the form of rebellion
begins to develop between him and the family, especially his wife.
Domestic abuse then begins to set in. Apart from alcohol, many incidents
of domestic abuse are caused by drug addiction, as when the family
rebels against the authority of the man, he feels humiliated,
disrespected and disobeyed, and to him, the best way to solve it is to
teach them a lesson by physically or verbally abusing them.
Drug addiction is sometimes the cause of
broken homes. Imagine your husband being labeled as a drug addict by
society. Imagine the humiliation you get from your friends, especially,
when you have been brutally been beaten up by your husband. The marriage
eventually lands on the rocks.
If the children are not careful, since
they see the father as a role model, they might end up being addicts
like him. Not long ago, this reporter had a chat with an old man who
seems to be in his late 60s about the use of marijuana.
According to him, he had been using it
almost all his life, and that some of his children are addicts. He even
said they had a ghetto in the bush where almost all the drug addicts in
the neighborhood meet there to smoke marijuana.
Conclusion
Drug addiction is gradually destroying
the homes of many people in the country. It is unfortunate that the
country does not have enough rehabilitation centers for addicts like in
the developed world. Many addicts end up in jail as a form of correcting
their mistakes, but end up getting worse.
If addicts are given attention and well
catered for through rehabilitation, then it won’t be necessary to choke
the various prisons in the country with drug users who come out worse
than before.
Being a drug addict does not make the
ability of the individual redundant; helping that fellow to overcome his
or her addiction will go a long way in saving many lives.
Short URL: http://thechronicle.com.gh/?p=30382
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