The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has clarified that its proposed drug test policy for admission seekers and students is intended to provide support rather than expel those grappling with substance abuse.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Channels Television\u2019s Morning Brief<\/em> on Tuesday, NDLEA’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, explained that the policy is focused on early intervention and treatment rather than punishment. He emphasized that the agency views drug use among students as a public health issue, not a criminal one.<\/p>\n Babafemi stated, \u201cWe\u2019re treating this as a public health issue, not a crime. Our aim is to work with educational institutions to ensure that students who test positive for drug use are not expelled but rather given access to treatment and counseling to help them reintegrate into their academic pursuits.\u201d<\/p>\n The NDLEA’s approach centers on deterrence, early detection, counseling, and treatment. Babafemi explained that knowing drug tests may be conducted will encourage students to avoid substance abuse, thus preventing the issue from escalating to addiction.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not advocating for students to be expelled; instead, we want to detect those in need of help early on and provide them with the necessary support,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s easier to treat substance use when detected early before it becomes a more serious addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n Babafemi also highlighted that the agency offers treatment and counseling services, including 30 treatment centers across Nigeria, with three more set to open soon. Additionally, the NDLEA has a 24-hour call center staffed with mental health professionals and toll-free helplines for those seeking assistance.<\/p>\n To aid families, the NDLEA has produced drug test kits that can be used at home to detect substance use among children and loved ones. Babafemi noted that while the service is free, the cost of the test kits ranges from N5,000 to N10,000.<\/p>\n The goal of the policy, according to Babafemi, is to ensure that students are not only tested but also supported through recovery and counseling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has clarified that its proposed drug test policy for admission seekers and students is intended to provide support rather than expel those grappling with substance abuse. Speaking on Channels Television\u2019s Morning Brief on Tuesday, NDLEA’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, explained that the policy is focused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":44607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44606"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44615,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44606\/revisions\/44615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}