'Over 5,000 drug addicts live in The Gambia' 
            Claims Assistant Commissioner
              
             
             The Assistant Commissioner of Western Division, Mr Kebba Ceesay has said that over five thousand people addicted to various types of illegal drugs were currently living in the Gambia and that more are yet to be discovered by the authorities. 

            Mr Ceesay made this disclosure during the opening ceremony of the International Organisation of Good Templers (IOGT) extra-ordinary congress held in Brikama this past Saturday.  According to the Assistant Commissioner there were 181 drug cases in 1996 and out of this number "thirty percent were foreigners while seventy percent were Gambians".  Ceesay further stated that in 1997, there were 323 drug cases and that twenty- six percent were foreigners while the remainding seventy-four percent were Gambians. 

            "The statistics on drugs related cases show a steady increase in the number of the Gambians involved in illegal drugs", he said, adding that drug abuse always increases the crime rate in the country and retards development. 

            On the issue of mental illness cases in the Campama Mental Clinic, Mr Kebba Ceesay pointed out that 1,100 mentally ill people were admitted and that 605 of those were due to the use of illegal drugs. 

             He asserted that the government is concerned over an apparent high rate of drug abuse. 

            "That is why the government has set up a drug control unit within the Department of State for Interior" he said. 

            He called on the IOGT to compliment government's effort so as to eradicate drug abuse in the country.  

            In his contribution, the outgoing chairman of IOGT The Gambia, Mr Samboujang Conteh said that the organisation was formed to minimise or eradicate drug abuse among the general public, with special emphasis on youths. 

            "IOGT has been doing all efforts to see the total eradication of drugs. We had embarked on campaigning against drugs and alcohol, and we organised sensitisation programmes on the issue" Mr Conteh said.  Meanwhile, elections conducted at  the end of the IOGT congress for the position of national chairman saw Alagie M.M Jallow emerging as the new head.