As cases of drug and alcohol abuse among young people spike in Juba City, Central Equatoria State Governor Emmanuel Adil Anthony has directed the state ministry of health to ensure hospitals and clinics operating in the city do not sell medicine to people without doctors’ prescriptions.
Addressing the people of Juba Town Block on Thursday, Adil said he had noticed that there is a rise in substance abuse mainly among young people who have even resorted to using prescription drugs and tranquilizers like benzodiazepines.
“There is a medicine which was brought to me called benzodiazepine. This is one of the medicines young people are taking,” he said. “It is sold in the shops but we are not banning it from being sold because it is actually for sick people. However, I want the health ministry to have regulations and medicine should not be sold without a prescription.”
Cases of drug and alcohol abuse are becoming common across the country among youth. In June last year, the police in Yambio reportedly arrested dozens of teenagers consuming harmful drugs while earlier this year, Juba City authorities arrested 20 suspected drug dealers in the Mouana suburb.
Governor Adil also directed the Juba city authorities to find out where dangerous alcoholic spirits, especially Jenafar, are manufactured.
“I want this Jenafar to be stopped and you should check in the shops and make sure it is banned for the sake of our children,” he ordered.
For her part, Nejua Mursal, the state minister of health, said medicine commonly prescribed as anxiolytics, sedatives, and anticonvulsants for people suffering from epilepsy are the ones mostly abused by the youth.
“The fact is that these medicines are meant for epilepsy which makes patients convulse,” she said.
The minister said the medicine makes the youth crazy because it has not been prescribed by a doctor and they do not need it.