JIDE’S DILEMMA: SHOULD DRUG ABUSE BE DECRIMINALISED?

JIDE’S DILEMMA: SHOULD DRUG ABUSE BE DECRIMINALISED?

When Jide walked into the small rehab centre in Kugbo that morning, his hands trembled, not from withdrawal, but from shame.

The twenty-seven-year-old, once a bright Computer Science graduate from one of Nigeria’s top universities, had lost everything: his job, his family’s trust, and his sense of self.

He wasn’t violent. He wasn’t stealing. He wasn’t even selling drugs. He was simply using, and for that, society branded him a criminal.

“I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to ruin my life,” he said quietly, looking down. “I just wanted the noise in my head to stop.”

The noise began after his father died suddenly of a heart attack.

His mother, his only support, fell into depression.

Jide tried to stay strong, but the weight of grief was heavy. One evening, a friend offered him a small pill, promising “just one would make you forget your worries.”

He took it. That one pill became many. Then came the police raid.

“I was in a corner, shaking,” Jide recalled. “They didn’t ask if I needed help. They just handcuffed me.”

He spent six months in a cell with hardened criminals. When he came out, no one would hire him. No one trusted him. Even his church avoided him.

He became what they called him, a “junkie.”

The Debate: Crime or Illness?

In Nigeria and many parts of the world, drug use is treated as a crime rather than a cry for help.

Those caught with even small amounts of banned substances are thrown behind bars instead of being offered therapy or rehabilitation.

But should it be this way? Should drug abuse be decriminalised, treated as a public health issue rather than a criminal one?

Some say yes. They argue that many young people like Jide need help, not handcuffs.

Portugal, for instance, decriminalised drug use in 2001 and instead poured resources into treatment and reintegration.

Two decades later, drug-related deaths and infections have dropped drastically, and thousands of lives have been restored.

Others disagree. They worry that decriminalisation could encourage more people to use drugs freely, weakening moral and cultural values.

In a country such as ours where addiction recovery services are already underfunded, some believe decriminalisation could worsen the crisis.

The Human Cost

Jide’s mother, Mama Kemi, had tears in her eyes as she spoke to us.

“When they arrested him, they treated him like an animal. But my son is not a criminal. He is sick. Would you jail a malaria patient for being ill?”

Her words hurt a lot. Because beyond every arrest, every label, and every headline, there is a mother praying, a friend grieving, a community losing one of its own.

At Balm for the Bruised Foundation, we’ve met many like Jide, youths trapped between punishment and pain, desperately needing empathy and understanding. Some make it out. Many don’t.

A Question for Us All

So, should drug abuse be decriminalised?

Maybe the better question is: what do we gain by punishing those already broken?

When you strip away the fear, the shame, and the moral judgement, you find human beings, sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters, yearning for another chance at life.

Imagine if we shifted our energy from locking them up to lifting them up. Imagine if every police cell became a counselling centre, every arrest became an intervention, and every addict was seen first as a person, not a problem.

That’s not just decriminalisation. That’s humanisation.

Jide is now two years clean. He works with a small NGO that mentors at-risk youth. But the scars remain, not from the drugs, but from the rejection that followed.

“If someone had helped me earlier,” he said softly, “I might have been a different story.”

Maybe the next Jide still can be.

What do you think?

Should Nigeria decriminalise drug abuse, or is the fear of misuse too great a risk to take?

Join the conversation. Share your thoughts.

Visit www.balmforthebruised.org to read more real stories and be part of the movement to heal, not punish.