The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Godfred Yeboah Dame, has said that the use of hard drugs has the potency to completely destroy the lives of brilliant students and further ruin their future.
According the AG, many brilliant young students who developed deep interest in illicit drugs while they were in school, crushed their future as they did not live to fulfil their aspirations.
Mr. Dame has, therefore, advised students in the second cycle institutions to completely stay away from the use of hard drugs, and other related social vices that could adversely affect their dear lives and ruin their future.
The Attorney General gave the advice at the Adisadel College in Cape Coast during a day’s seminar for the students on illicit drugs, under the theme: “Prevention of the use of illicit drugs; The Youth Our Future”.
Speaking as the Special Guest of Honour for the event, Mr. Odame, who is an “Old Boy” of Adisadel College, counselled the gathered students to be disciplined and take their studies seriously.
This, he indicated, was the surest means through which they could have the full benefit of their stay at the school, and come out to be useful citizens in the country when the mantle of leadership falls on them.
Using his personal life as a classic example, Mr. Dame stated emphatically that complete abstinence from the usage of illicit drugs, right from his boyhood days at the college, had been part of his success story today.
He stated categorically that illicit drugs had absolutely nothing useful to add to the life of any serious student, who desired to climb the ladder of education to progress in life.
Mr. Dame, who had been accredited as Ghana’s youngest Attorney General since the inception of the current constitutional dispensation, gave a chilling account of how some of his brilliant school mates at Adisco took to drugs and destroyed their lives.
“For students, your main purpose is to stay on straight and…, which is to study your books and imbibe all the other healthy practices, such as sports and what have you. If you think that you are bored there are a lot of things that you can resort. Entertainment definitely cannot come in the form of drugs,” he said.
The event was organised by the POS Foundation, which is a leading Human Rights Institution operating in the areas of Criminal Justice, Access to Justice, Law and Policy Reforms, Women Economic Empowerment and Youth Development.
The Executive Director of POS Foundation, Mr. Jonathan Osei Owusu, indicated that the scenario where young people often developed a huge passion for the use of illicit drug was predominant among students, and youth in general.
In his view, the use of drugs by the youth, urgently called for critical measures to sensitise them on the dangers of drug abuse, and the need for complete abstinence from all illicit drug-related activities that could collapse their ambitions.
This, Mr. Owusu explained, necessitated the engagement which was facilitated by his foundation to education the students about the dangers of illicit drugs and its impact on their lives.
“We were in Koforidua Sec Tech and today we are in Adisadel College basically to talk to young people to take their studies seriously and run away from drugs which will eventually ruin their future. That is what we came to do,” he stated.
Officials from the Narcotics Control Board and other relevant agencies took turns to address the students on the dangers of hard drugs.
