Africa Loses As the War on drugs Rages

Former U.S. president, Richard Nixon introduced the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 in a bid to fight drug trafficking and its usage.  The countries of the world borrowed a leaf and the global war on drugs ensured. 

By 2013, US$ 1 trillion spent, millions of people languishing in prisons and death rows, some having paid the ultimate price, and 230 million people still cracking the stuff, many think the war on drugs has to take another approach. Charismatic entrepreneur and Virgin Group founder, Richard Branson believes the war on drugs must change from prohibitive to rehabilitative. He spoke to Time: 

"It’s torn countries in South America apart. It’s caused complete misery from the top of society right throughout. It’s almost turned some countries into lawless countries, in the same way that prohibition of alcohol did in America with Al Capone and all the misery that went on during prohibition"

 An African proverb says that a person protects where he lives. So I'm going to discuss the negative effects the war on drugs has on Africa. In Nigeria, a governmental agency, Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency  arrests and prosecutes hundreds of Nigerian youths annually on account of drug trafficking and drug usages. Most of these youths spend years behind bars. 

These, Richard Branson says, has no impact in reducing the level of drug usage and crimes. Instead, it makes youths associate drugs to coming of age and to attach a sense of "gangster" to it. This increasingly makes youths, craving rebellion, to turn towards drugs. 

With increasing poverty level in Africa, many youths are lured into drug trafficking where quick money is made. If drug was legalized and taxed like alcohol, there would be no need for it to be smuggled and trafficked. There would be less need to make quick money smuggling it. I can say that drug trafficking and drug consumption go together, because in economics there is a correlation between supply and demand. 

Africans trafficking drugs usually end in jails across the world. In countries, like Malaysia, Singapore and China where drug trafficking carries death penalty, they pay the ultimate price. Nigeria's Foreign Minister, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru, says that there are 1,773 Nigerians serving jail sentences across Asia, with 31 on death rows in Malaysia and Indonesia, mostly for drug-related offences. 

These are youths in the prime of their lives. The years at which they are the most productive are being wasted behind bars.  As youths with potentials are incarcerated, and some even executed, Africa loses from the force of man-power and fresh ideas they would have injected in developing African economies. 

The Nigerian Foreign Minister has a word of advice for the would-be drug traffickers on This Day Live.

“Nigerians need to be fully aware of the grave consequences of their actions. They also need to know that with the introduction of sophisticated detection technology, the chances of discovery of drugs hidden anywhere is very high. So, my message to our compatriots is simple: please, do not carry drugs, you will be apprehended.”

However, I believe that governments should treat drugs like they do alcohol and cigarettes.  In the words of Richard Branson, they should "regulate it. Tax it, Use those taxes to help with health issues, to help with education". 
This way millions of African youths will be saved from imprisonment and premature deaths. This will spare more youthful energies to be injected in building the African, and to a larger extent, the global economy.