The youth have been advised to abstain from drugs and other substance abuse and concentrate on their education. David Macaulay, President of Psycho-Mental Health Foundation, an NGO based in the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, noted that drugs had harmful effects on the user with resultant social vices on the society at large. He said drugs had been the main causes of increased crime and prostitution, adding that these were adversely destroying the youth who most often engaged in the practice. Mr Macaulay was speaking at a forum organized by the NGO and sponsored by the Lebanese Women’s Association of Ghana for students of the Ada Senior Secondary School in the Dangme-East District of the Greater Accra Region. He cautioned the students against peers who would influence them to engage in drugs. “Drugs do not help you to learn better; rather they destroy your sound mental health,” he said. Mr. Macaulay called on the students to monitor and report colleagues who engaged in the practice to the authorities for counselling. Lawrence Essuman, Vice President of the NGO, who talked on causes of mental illness, said emotional tremors, hereditary and degenerative signs, among others, were some of the contributory factors of mental illness and advised the students against the use of unknown substances. Ms. Victoria Osabutey, a nurse at the Hospital called on the students to watch out for physical and psychological signs such as severe headache, excessive sweating, depression, isolation and poor sense of judgment and report to the psychiatric hospital for counselling and treatment. Source: GNA