The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency on Monday approved the usage of Cannabis, popularly known as Indian hemp, to address medical related problems.
The project officer of the UNODC, Harsheth Lauren Virk, made this known during a public hearing on the need to check the rising menace of pharmaceutical abuse among youths in Nigeria.
According to Virk, Cannabis is a miracle drug allowed for medical purposes by the United Nations but not for recreational purposes.
She said: “Nigeria as a sovereign Nation has its stringent laws against it, but international conventions of the UN have approved it for medical purposes based on outcome of researches conducted to that effect by globally recognized institutes.”
She told the lawmakers that based on UN recommendations, aside cannabis, recreational users of other addictive drugs should not be criminalized but rehabilitated.
According to Virk: “The Drugs and Crime office of the UN sees addictive drugs users as people who are sick, in need of treatment, care and rehabilitation.”
She added that the Nation’s security operatives, particularly the Police, should be made to be proactive in approach against drug traffickers and not reactive.
In his presentation, the representative of the NDLEA, who is the Director of Technical Services, Femi Oloruntoba, explained to the lawmakers that drug users in Nigeria are not criminalised but drug traffickers or possessors.