Like a drop out, drug abuse takes two forms. One, the indiscriminate use of drugs (medicines) without doctor’s prescription .i.e. Cecilia’s plea to Rachael when she suddenly can’t hold how her head aches in. (Cecilia: Rachael! Can you please get me a sachet of Boska. My head is a battleground.) Two, the unrepentant intake of narcotics that are mostly christened thinking faculty-resetting two-syllabic words: siga, Igbo, ewe, eja, ganja.

This write-up, like a camera, focuses on two, the indiscriminate intake of hard drugs and as it is, drags of nose attacking puffs that place unintending second smokers at high risk.

There are several reasons addicts try to justify as answers to the whys people throw at them. Some say, “a puff a day keeps the cold away” and this cold is what I once wrote about.
It’s cold out here. It’s cold in there… because the cold in there answers loneliness.
The first cold refers to a chilly, windy weather. In this part of the world, it is often associated to the raining season or the harmattan period. Some addicts, especially the puffers say smoking has become a habit because it’s been their strong power to weather the weather that is thirty degrees below zero.

The other cold as I have written …answers loneliness. A survey on drug addicts shows that a majority of them are lonely people. To keep their own company, they do drugs. An addict once said, “I hardly hear voices around, so it is cool to hear some in my head.” Another said, ” I hear voices in my head after a drag and that’s fair. In such moments, at least, I am not alone.”

Taking drugs doesn’t provide answers to the cold addicts feel because if it does, they won’t keep repeating the process. Rather, it is like frolicking with a ticking bomb. At times, I like to liken smokers to suicide bombers; they drag others along with each drag as they die with an alarm. Smokers and those who abuse drugs as they have been observed over the years battle health challenges, altered appearance (Tremors, stained (coloured) teeth, shabby dressing) and being socially imbalanced.

On the pack of every brand of cigarettes is the inscription smokers are liable to die young. They foreshadow, yeah! Before addicts become their own shadows. What then shall we say about a home of puff which isn’t registered with any brand but is the favourite of every derelict even without an on-air advertisement? Slow death, yeah?

In all, the effect of drug abuse, ranging from smoking to injecting drugs into the blood stream via syringe to sniffling on drug addict is like the aftermath of packs of hard relaxer on hairs with soft scalp. They promise well-relaxed silky hair but won’t breathe a word about how the hair will start pulling like a bird’s feather having a bath in a Jacuzzi of hot water. One will be treated to the enjoyment of daydreaming about a well combed hair before one becomes bald. That’s the case with drug abuse too. They call it enjoyment while the health deteriorates.

© AnikeBeloved
Name of Artist : Adeniran Francis Temitope ( Artdeniran )
Name of Writer : Jegede Oluwapelumi ( AnikeBeloved )