Nasarawa: The thriving Indian hemp trade - By Abel Daniel

The rate of consumption of marijuana, aka Indian hemp, and alcoholic drinks by youths in Lafia metropolis and some parts of Nasarawa State is alarming.  Every one wonders whether officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) saddled with the responsibility of curbing the scourge are actually on ground.
These hemp guys have grown big and almost untouchable even by the police as hemp is seen being sold the way candies are sold to children.

Virtually in all major joints in Lafia, you find youths in groups idling away. Many of them really don’t seem to know what a classroom looks like; some are school drop outs, others not exactly drop outs but are hit by the gale of unemployment in the country.

They look at passers-by with cold indifference. They are perpetually angry and despondent. You can read frustration and defiance in their eyes. But they appear to have devised a way out of their unsavoury condition – narcotics, particularly Indian hemp.

Sunday Vanguard findings revealed that there are many no-go areas in Lafia for the NDLEA due to the heavy presence of drug addicts and other notorious boys. At public occasions, the boys are seen in  groups feasting on hemp with smoke rising from their nose like chimney. Sometimes police officers who are fed up with the rising smoke go to plead with them to relocate in the interest of second hand smokers at public gatherings.

Spots such as Agwan Jaban, Kilema Junction, Tundun Gwandara, Cashew Heaven, Agwan Tiv, Maraba-Akunza, as well as Tundun Kauri and 16 Mangoes are no-go areas for like lily-livered. The Law enforcement agents know these areas but act as if nothing is going on.

If you are a reporter looking for the real story of the drug ring holding Lafia by the jugular, you do not need to look for the blood-shot–eyed rough neck by the road side. All you need to do is get close enough to the trader selling legitimate items like tea. He sells his tea but his thriving business of Indian Hemp is under the table.  And there are many like him all over town.

However, findings showed that only those schooled in the signs and language of the drug business can get the item to buy. “They know their customers,” a source familiar with the trade confided in Sunday Vanguard. According to him “they don’t normally sell it to stranger(s).”   The source further said that “the dealers have some notable personalities in the society as customers who he said, “are a cog in the wheel of operations of law enforcement agencies.” The big men don’t go there to buy, they use aides.

It was gathered that some mobile patent medicine sellers also sell drugs. Although, NDLEA destroyed two big hemp farms in Keana and Keffi local government areas of the state last year, the trade in drug continues to thrive.

While marijuana is grown in Nasarawa, it was, however, learnt that some of the dealers smuggle it into the state through neighbouring Benue, Taraba and Plateau States and sometimes, from Abuja through Nasarawa-Toto.