 In the wake of the international day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking, countries have been advised to discourage legalizing the use of addictive substances such as cannabis and marijuana. Now, the theme for this year is shared fact and drugs save lives. Our correspondent Adiban Keoduni has more on this. Opium, cocaine, ecstasy, these are a few of the names that come to mind when drug abuse is mentioned. Drug abuse and trafficking is a world that has been fought by the world for hundreds of years and in order to express its determination to strengthen action and cooperation, the United Nations decided to observe 26th of June as the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on 7th December 1987. This year's theme is share facts on drugs save lives. Speaking on strategies to ending this menace, a former drug user and founder of Global Center for Drug Eradication, Keji Hamilton, said children should be taught about drugs and their effects while parents must be educated on drugs as well. So Adiban, we need to start to do differently. We should try to develop skills among young people so that I stop going to drug because another thing we have to do differently is we should try and stop stigmatizing those who use drugs as if they are wood people or all they are not serious about life because going into drugs is not the final stage of a lot of things that have been piling up in the emotional tank of every human being that are going to drugs. On the issue of illicit trafficking, he said some highly placed people cost the high influx of drugs. We really need to fight the drug market itself, which is something I think is quite impossible. Why? There are nations who drugs trafficking makes for their GDP among the nation names, you understand. One, number two, there are people that are high up there, the calibre of seat of power that are actually sponsoring drug markets. Countries such as Canada, Georgia, South Africa and Uruguay have legalized cannabis and Nigerian lawmakers have a bill considering the legalization of marijuana. This was described as a bad idea. Whatever you ask me, from that perspective, okay, did you think that cannabis should be legalized? I would say no, it shouldn't be legalized. Why? Because I know the effect of cannabis on the brain of anybody that uses cannabis. A report done by the UNODC said that non-medical use of cannabis and sedatives increased globally during the pandemic, reporting for Plus TV Africa at a bank Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.