The rise of the use of children to sell drugs in Fiji today has been described as sickening by Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua today.
At the Talanoa Session “Responding to Illicit Drugs and Substance Use Disorders in Fiji’ hosted by the Fiji National University last week, Tikoduadua said while investigations show varying reasons for children selling the drugs, this needs to be put to a stop.
“It is sickening to learn that Fijians, not only Fijians but those who have influence of our children, use these children to do drugs.
“Children in their own different levels of innocence do not necessarily know what they are embarking upon. There are so many reasons why students do drugs, why students are selling drugs and we must work hand in hand to put a stop to this now.”
Tikoduadua said it was not right to just blame our drug abuse problem on history.
“We may have had a history that contributed to this problem that we have here today but we cannot just blame history. Second only to climate change, the biggest problem in Fiji today is drugs abuse. It’s spread like wildfire over the last 12 months because I don’t think that it’s ever been given this level of publicity because we have come to acknowledge that it has become a problem for us.”
