NIGERIA AND THE TRAGEDY OF THE TRAMADOL TRADE
By Bala Ibrahim
Doctors say Tramadol is an opioid agent used for pain management with huge potentials of misuse. This misuse according to the doctors, is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. And is more rampant among young adults in low-income settings. In Nigeria today, the abuse of tramadol as a drug, is a crippling affliction that is virtually synonymous with every home. Nearly every family is infested by people, young and adults, that are directly or indirectly dependent on one suppressant or the other. And because tramadol is widely, or wrongly advertised as the drug that suppresses or reduces the intensity of stress, and virtually everyone in Nigeria is either stressed out or on the border of being stressed out, the consumption rate of the drug is becoming increasingly alarming. According to some statistics, cough syrups or suppressants with high codeine contents, are next to the tramadol in terms of household consumption in Nigeria.
People consume the drugs because they temporarily take their minds off the situational stress. They kind of numb the pain of the moment, but can create more pains for the furure. As advanced by Karl Marx, the German revolutionary and critic of political economy, who described religion as the ‘opium of the masses’, tramadol is equally seen by some as the opium, because it distorts reality and numbs the pain of depression, temporarily. Yes, when abused, tramadol can distort reality and cause tramadol-induced health effects, that could lead to a sharp rise in criminal activities.
While Karl Marx identified some important ways in which the efficacy of religion is reaffirmed by the promise of an eternal life in heaven, for those who follow and adhere to its belief, tramadol and other suppressants succeed only in giving illusion to the consumer, who migrates into hallucinations for a short period. Everything he sees or think about after the consumption of the drug is largely false.
Public concerns in Nigeria over the misuse of tramadol and other opioids among young people and family members, especially with regards to associated health and social harms are alarmingly high, very high. While doctors are insisting that pharmacies should stick to prescription as a way of control, and law enforcement agencies are encouraging police and NDLEA raids on stores, those in the business are constantly circumventing such measures of curtailing the supply and consumption of the drugs. In fact, rather than constraining the supply of the illicit drugs, sometimes, the measures constitute a roadblock to the supply of essential medicines for pain management, encourage illegal markets and fuell law enforcement corruption in the form of police complicity in the illegal tramadol trade in Nigeria. Death, injury, and addiction are new trends increasingly arrogated to tramadol use in Nigeria. Also, in addition to the rise in tramadol-induced health effects, there is also a sharp rise in criminal activities linked with persons addicted to unlicensed use of tramadol in the country. This is indeed sickening, for a nation that is already battling with multifaceted challenges.
What is particularly painful about the tramadol abuse, according to doctors, is the fact that fatal health risks, such as extreme sleepiness, slowed or stopped breathing, coma and death may occur, when tramadol is consumed wrongly. Only last week, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, announced the confiscation of no fewer than 2.49 million tablets and capsules of tramadol, in a truck, on the Gombe-Bauchi Expressway. The agency estimated the drugs to be worth over ₦2 billion. While presenting the seized drugs as exhibits, the Gombe State Commander of the NDLEA, Okechukwu Nkere, said the truck was intercepted on 13 September at about 8:30 pm, along with the driver and a passenger. Following credible intelligence, the drugs were found in the truck, laden with bags of salt as a decoy.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, Nigerians living with a drug use disorder outnumbered, by far, people living with HIV and AIDS in the country. The consequences, in terms of adverse effects from drug use and especially drug dependence behaviours, are well-known to any society. These effects can be health-related as well as social. The effects of drug addiction include a person’s nutrition, sleep and susceptibility to communicable diseases. They say people are more prone to injury as a result of drug abuse. Also, pregnant women or breastfeeding mothers experience health impact to both them and the child. Pregnant women who abuse drugs have their babies experience withdrawal after birth. Doctors call such condition as, neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). Drug abuse also increases the risk of premature or low birth weight.
Those who delve in the things that drive human behaviours also say the social implication of drug abuse ranges from family conflicts, loss of unemployment to legal issues, resulting from criminality or arrest from drug abuse. Equally, drug abuse is a well-recognised link to terrorist activity, because it fuels violent behaviour and the drug trade. This, therefore, means that addressing the drug abuse problem and the surge of tramadol particularly, would have benefits that transcend public health and wellbeing. May we all be guided, and protected, Ameen.
NIGERIA AND THE TRAGEDY OF THE TRAMADOL TRADE