The Commissioner for Health and Human Services in Benue, Joseph Ngbea, has advised Nigerians against abusing drugs like paracetamol.
Mr Ngbea stated this on Monday during the War Against Drug Abuse (WADA), organised by Eunice Spring of Life Foundation (ESLF), in partnership with the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in Makurdi.
Disclosing that the abuse of paracetamol affects the liver, the commissioner urged Nigerians to keep strictly to prescriptions to avoid damage to their body systems.
He disclosed that the Benue government was working on a proposal to build rehabilitation centres in all the three Senatorial Districts of the state.
He pledged that the ministry would sustain its partnership with ESLF and NDLEA to ensure that WADA achieved success in the state.
NDLEA commander in the state, Esther Musa, lamented that the cultivation of cannabis in the state had taken over the cultivation of yams, cassava, maize and other farm produce.
She called on all and sundry to assist the agency to nip the menace in the bud by volunteering information to her.
The Coordinating Programme Officer, ELSF, Karen Yankyaa, said that a survey conducted in 2020 revealed that 14.4 million Nigerians used and abused drugs.
(NAN)
