‘Tobacco now mixed with illicit drugs’ — NDLEA to go after shisha smokers

Femi Babafemi, spokesperson of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), says the agency will no longer overlook shisha smokers especially as some persons mix the content with illicit drugs.

Babafemi said this on Friday during a Twitter Spaces conversation hosted by the NDLEA.

Shisha, which is a tobacco prepared for smoking through long pipes, isn’t prohibited in Nigeria, but is banned to persons below the age of 18.

Babafemi said the agency used to overlook shisha because it was thought to be ordinary tobacco, but that recent arrests have shown that shisha is now mixed with illicit drugs. 

“We have seen from recent arrests that people who sell shisha also mix some other substance into it like cannabis and some other drugs,” he said. 

“We are going after them now so that you won’t say you don’t know because there is no ignorance in law. Please, mind the shisha you take. 

“If we get to you and we test what is in that bottle that you are smoking and we discover that there is much more to it than ordinary tobacco, then you are violating the law. So, you could be arrested for that. Please let’s know that.

“We are after them because we have discovered that a lot of people now mix a lot of other things with the shisha.”

He also listed some commonly-abused drugs in Nigeria to include “rubber solution, tramadol and codeine”, adding that the agency is stepping up efforts to rid the country of such illicit drugs.

“Last year alone, in the week of Christmas in Lagos, the NDLEA intercepted I think 8.3 million capsules of these drugs alone. Just imagine what that would have done to our people in Lagos and in other parts of the country where that consignment would have been distributed to. But we were able to intercept that in Lagos,” he added.

Meanwhile, on February 24, TheCable had reported that the NDLEA destroyed 255 hectares of cannabis farms in Ondo state.