NDLEA

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency is Nigeria’s federal agency for drug control. It is best known for enforcement, but it also has a statutory counseling and rehabilitation mandate and operates treatment services.

Key Points:

• Two roles at once: the agency that arrests is also an agency that treats. That combination is a genuine barrier — fear of arrest keeps people and their families from seeking help at all.
• Regulated substances people are commonly using: tramadol, codeine syrups, cannabis and methamphetamine all fall under its remit.
• What private care means for confidentiality: a session with a licensed therapist is confidential, with the narrow, standard exceptions — an immediate risk to your life or someone else’s, or a court order. Seeking help for drug use is not itself reportable.
• Families often ask about forced treatment: coerced admission is legally and clinically fraught, and outcomes are consistently better when the person has some agency in the decision.
• In practice: if someone is using, the sooner they can speak to a clinician without fearing the consequences of saying so, the better the outcome. That is worth saying out loud in a first session.