Apparently alarmed by the rate at which young females and even old married women are now addicted to drugs, authorities of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), have said that drug tests may be included in premarital screenings due to the increase in rate of drug addiction among girls and married women.
NDLEA Chairman, Mohammed Mustapha Abdalla, who stated this during the destruction of seized illicit substances, on Friday in Maiduguri said the target of illicit trafficked drugs which hitherto used to be among the male youthful population was fast expanding to now include teenage girls, young women and old married women.
"As An an extension of the proposed Drug Integrity Test Policy for the public servants, the agency is considering partnering with religious leaders to make drug testing a prerequisite for marriages in churches and mosques as the case for HIV/AIDS”, he said.
He said the essence of the event was to ensure that all seized illicit drugs were put out of circulation, adding that 19,234.58 kilograms of illicit substances including controlled prescription drugs, cannabis sativa, cocaine and heroin were destroyed.
-additional reports from Daily Trust.