The Northern Women Assembly, has called the Federal Government’s attention to the rising rate of women abusing drugs in the northern states of Kano and Katsina, citing that more women now abuse drugs than men in those areas.

The group at a briefing in Abuja said its findings showed that more women in the two states now used hard drugs due to “frustration, peer influence and lack of education.”

The NWA President, Mrs. Aisha Hussain, said drugs abuse among the northern women would be tackled when the government and private organisations intensified on sensitisation and enlightenment of the populace.

She said:

“The challenge facing women in the north is drug abuse. We have discovered that most women in the north presently use drugs even more than the men. This is prevalent in Kano and Katsina states.

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) regularly seizes drugs both within the country and at its points of entry, especially airports and land borders. Certain substances considered as illegal are being abused regularly, especially by some youths who have nurtured that kind of lifestyles from their interactions with negative foreign popular cultures through the internet or other media.

The illegal substances are called all sorts of names. Such names do not mean anything to the non-initiates, because they are carefully crafted to conceal them.

Names given to the substances are: Scorpion gas, Angel breeze, Monkey tail, Chasing the dragon, Flying stone, Man-die-go, Fire-for-fire, Gigabytes, Suck-and-die, lizard dung, among others.

There is also the absurd act of inserting pipes into graves to sniff the acrid air from interred corpses.