Mr Mark Woyongo, Upper East Regional Minister, on Wednesday stated that government is committed to tackling the drug menace in the country.

The Regional Minister who stated this during the launching of the the International Narcotic Control Board Annual Report in Bolgatanga said government had raised the standard for tackling the drug menace in terms of supply, control and demand reduction.

He indicated that more needed to be done especially in the area of engaging Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to play a leading role at protecting people from drug abuse.

The Regional Minister therefore called on the private sector to support NGOs to establish drug abuse fund which would solely be managed by NGOs and supervised by the Narcotic Control Board.

He noted that statistics of general attendance from the country’s four psychiatric hospitals show 19,254 drug related mental health cases while first time patients were 2,909.

According to him, to help minimize the problem, government had given the Narcotic Control Board clearance to recruit qualified staff to augment the current staff strength and indicated that the issues of tackling the problem was a shared responsibility.

He appealed to chiefs, politicians and the media among others to help propagate the anti-drug message.

Mr Woyongo admonished students to stay away from narcotic drugs if they want to become responsible citizens in future and entreated parents to monitor their children regularly and caution them against drug abuse.

Mr Joseph Asare, an official from the Narcotic Control Board, said the upsurge of social media such as facebook, twitter, yahoo messenger and goggle had become the new modes by which the youth were lured into the use of drugs.