West africa is battling an opioid abuse trust medicine such as tramadol legally prescribed by doctors for pain relief but taken into life threatening texts by millions and such from fakes already stripped off and left to people in power has been to nigeria to investigate have the drug smuggling trade and abused widespread corruption that follows islamist traffic and the appalling Health Consequences for those in its grip. Ringback if youre going to stay in the midst of the worst drug addiction and family and its barely a week goes by without Spring International reports like these documents and americas opioid crisis. Yet the u. S. Is not the only country facing such a predicament really. Lagos nigeria is africas largest city in the country with the biggest population on the continent over 200000000 people. The city is overcrowded polluted and poverty stricken. And adding to its woes its suffering its on wide scale and growing opioid addiction epidemic. I was abusing the list if you do this if you still need to take time i dont feel like you havent yet tramadol a lifesaving opioid painkiller is also being abused on a massive scale by all sectors of society a little too cool for. Tramadol is this regulated the other hope you would painkillers like. A drug which has been implicated in more than 400000 deaths in the us since 2000 tramadol is less dangerous than oxycodone its no less addictive according to a new study by the mayo clinic a prestigious Us Medical Center the key findings our study which was looking at the effect of tramadol on long term dependence in patients from acute sort of pain was the patients who received tramadol actually to our surprise i did not have lower rates of long term opioid use but actually had slightly higher rates of going on to long term opioid use tramadol is currently a schedule for opioids versus other opioids like oxy caught on or schedule 2 meaning that the government considers those at higher risk of abuse and long term dependence we found is in fact really terminal is not actually any lower Interest Rate of abuse or long term dependence the epidemic isnt just confined to lagos its infected the into. Country. The united nations. Released the results of nigeria. What we found is really of concern of grave concern when were talking. Almost 5000000 users over the past 12 months and the tendency appears to be rising poverty unemployment desperation of people and their living situations is one of the drivers a lot of people seem to be using it associated with hard manual labor with sex work. Eases her ability to submit to a clients more extreme demands she calls the drug street name. Meaning. 50. 7. And most other abuses legal and highly dangerous version of the drug legally produced. 50 or 100. Tap that is being used widely for pain therapy it is really for a large part of the population the only pain medication. When were talking about abuse great. Were talking about. Significantly over a. 100 milligram what we have seen in seizures up to 225 milligrams and what we have heard in the reports of. People mentioned even up to 400 to 500 taps. We had. From a stable middle class family and works as a chef. Ground. The ground. To feed the family got. To be each pull cost 300. 00. A pull thats more than double the strength of legally available. To much of. My friends the. Abuse of. The. Drugs so where does this abuse come from that is being produced both legally as well as that is produced specifically for the nonmedical use is being produced in. Officially. Toris it is reaching nigeria primarily by sea its entering through 2 major ports. This begs the question. Of nigeria how does it get so widely distributed across the country. To interview to lagos drug dealers he agreed to before we didnt show his face. His business. In a suitcase full of with legal drugs. The tramadol he keeps out of sight im not counting terminal in sandy hook and just having to time i dont know but sometimes a pocket determined. Most of his clients are young men. When he moved because. Now i just guys would if. He also sells to women bank town and on the phone and then. When the waiting staff will tell you had to do cool foods to meet him selling time on the lexus 2 times thats wrong turn to pose a week a significant amount for a street below where we wanted to know does he get them from these people became us and us i mean come on talks to us in secret in did not knowing even though you go to town and go to huntingdon unclear at this point he became wary and wouldnt tell us anything more about a supply as we put this question to you in o. T. C. We need to be very honest we know relatively little about the criminal networks that are being involved how well theyre organized how large they are. Theres about 7 or 8 different nationalities that ive been identified the other issue that suggests a certain level of sophistication is to mere size of the individual seizures some of these seizures allegedly are reaching several tons dozens of talls which really suggests like a relatively sophisticated process. To find out more about such seizures we arranged a visit to a park nigerias largest and busiest ports. In 2018 customs and other authorities seized 41 containers of illegal tramadol here. Its goal to buy an armed convoy of cars. Drug Law Enforcement officials thats what they came to show us today. Program for. This. Is from. 2800. 00 seizures were a coup for the authorities the largest single seizure involved 33. 00 containers. They claimed 198000000000. Thats over 550000000. 00 u. S. Dollars. With such massive sums of money involved we wanted to know how many perpetrators had been brought to book. People who have imported. The. Kundu speak for this time. The. Investigation is going on on once is concluded prosecuted. But in the past there have been other importers of coming here what is wonderful for. The National Drug agency or indeed later told us that in the last 2 years only 5 people have been charged in relation to the seizures the prosecution is a still in process and to date no ones been convicted. We asked the commander about allegations of corruption at the port. Is not an issue because he walked in the air for like yes i dont think this issue. But the events which unfolded soon after seemed to indicate otherwise he phoned the customs official handing off a box of try. To a port worker. Then we captured boxes of the drug being thrown over the fins. Finally as we were leaving the paperwork was arrested going to literally for stealing tramadol we tried to film that to 100. 00. 48 of the words. My you tell me of the. Amount. Of the body. You. Know the. Customs did take it seriously foaming that is we were detained and pressured to delete our footage of the arrest. In the end though they let us go and official later confirmed that the arista pool had stolen the tramadol. But the ports of lagos are just the start of the problem next we travel to my degree in the north east of nigeria the city was once the headquarters of. The Islamic State franchise terrorizing this part of the country since 2009. The group which has been fighting a jury and military forces attacking schools and declaring an Islamic State in territory it controls since then to attacks and suicide bombings that killed an estimated 27000 people over 2000000 civilians have been displaced. Weve heard disturbing reports the tramadol might be playing a role in the insurgency. To understand how the conflict is affecting civilians here we interview a psychiatry might do grease federal neuropsychiatric hospital. A many patients although he shows us around a rehab. Isnt it its almost empty but that isnt for lack of those needing treatment. For. 1 the source of livelihood of. Afford treatment also since the insurrection began hes seen previously unthinkably high dosages of tramadol come on to the market we have. 625. Individuals to 10. 25. 00 shocking indeed that service 60 times the maximum legal dosage. One of those who cant afford treatment is above my. Comment than if i didnt i won a number of items of which were the. Same question and she has them all right achy. That was 4 years ago. Does another thats going to have to mortons now minus with. Me the other day that he was not with you thats because of the sin i was was in that i dont know if this is a god i had no idea. At the time of his brothers death of a druggie flayed his village. He now lives in a camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of my degree. Leaders or whatever the rule is in the serenity government. We really are going to do a damn always. Believe this do we were no one any one no one is a anyone know why need any about it to go into go into as anybody its not a geo vegeta i mean intended to question one and see the region if i have on now moments when i shall but as im going to academia. In other indicating i say how i down in the n. B. A. She hasnt yet. And its not just civilians are taking. That the drug is fueling the insurgency itself. For security reasons we could only interview. Like many of these arrested fighters he was forced to join the movement when he was in the teens. He was in the movement for 4 years before escaping. Now he lives in a refugee camp outside my degree. And. Put them to work because. The drug enabled them to carry out these arduous 24 missions. It was also used to groom them for what was to come. So you know. We dont want to do that that. The tourist leader hes led the group to become even more violent committing a text suicide bombings and most infamously the abduction of 276 school girls from chibok village 2014. Sure youre listening. To. The tramadol also helped to be deeply traumatic memory. Now much. More than i think. She. Actually did see. And of us there. Are going to. Yes yes no doubt that the drug is essential to sustaining insurgency but i want to. Focus. On this a lot but i dont. Go. Finally we travel westwards to car jarius 2nd largest city. Its got one of the highest poverty rates the country and also some of its worst tramadol abuse. At the mena connor Teaching Hospital system of legally prescribed tramadol and the dangers of the illegal street version can be seen in one location. This morning. With the patients in. The psychiatric ward is struggling to cope with the fallout from the abuse grade version 44 bates. 50 to 60 percent of our clients. Use. Due to the lack of resources drug users share the same ward with psychiatric patients. Which takes a short period of time and then we have to undo the psychological depend. On issues that are on that and it takes a long time even after you need to be quite a long time patient. But the flip side of the tramadol is this over regulating it would have disastrous results in a general ward we visit a patient for whom terminals an essential pain treatment. Suffers from Sickle Cell Disease a blood disorder which causes acute pain and stunts growth although he looks much younger hes actually 18. Teen the Nigerian Government in an effort to clamp down on the busa of coding cough syrups banned them extensively some doctors and experts are concerned that the authorities might resort to similar tactics. If you buy drugs. Because. They need the drug so if. We visit the local commander. In the city they tell us they slowly winning the war against illegal trying. To illustrate they doing to show us what used to be. The prison is relocated to make room for. Not only is it being sold nigeria but its being trafficked to neighboring countries to. See. This is. This is the. Group. Who was. Asked. To do. The 5 its influenced. All this tramadol they tell us mr system for destruction of the jail full of it is just a drop in the ocean the country still drowning in the drug. Next we join in india a drug raid. Looking and acting very much like the americans you train them they take to the streets in an armored convoy. In a display of force they travel through kano shunting traffic on the rise even though were you right here they disembark to read a large local market. Heavy handed operation probably put on for our benefit produces few results they arrest a young man wearing a cannabis t. Shirt. Its unclear if you even has any cannabis on him nevertheless hes bundled onto an india a truck which is fast filling up with other young men from the market. Nigeria has a 55 percent youth Unemployment Rate and it also has the highest number of People Living in extreme poverty in the world even more than india so men like these sometimes turn to drug dealing out of necessity. As night 6 in the raid wraps up but can i gerri is war against illegal tramadol really be one with guns without addressing the underlying causes of poverty unemployment an inequality that seems highly unlikely. The pollution is palpable. Delis shares the symptoms of many modern metropolis but its unique features have been gotten a crisis. People in power investigates the toxic mix feeding the citys invisible killer and asks why more is not being done to relieve its citizens that these deadly aired on aljazeera. They wanted 43000000000. 00 worth of weaponry that was 6000000000. 00 pounds in commission. Theres no hope of anymore because theres always a small hole of people for really really good mistress. In essence we in the United States have privatized the ultimate Public Function more shadow on aljazeera. In 2008 aljazeera documented a groundbreaking skiing. Preparing some live in the as poor as children for entry into its toughest universities ready. We return to see how the students and the scheme helping change the face of india. Super 30 announces iraq. Her. Life. Was. One of somalias worst attacks almost 80 People Killed as a bomb filled vehicle explodes at a busy checkpoint in the capital. Growth this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up anger and defiance in hong kong as protesters stormed a Shopping Mall near the border. With meet the parents to murder the return of their children who they say were kidnapped by kurdish fighters in turkey. Also extortion kidnapping and violence gangs look to control the slice of mexicos 1000000000. 00 avocado industry