More reports coming in on drugs - Tikoduadua

Minister for Home Affairs Pio Tikoduadua says the drug issues in the country has spread like wildfire over the past 12 months as there is a lot of reporting on this issue.

While delivering his speech during the Responding To Illicit Drugs National Talanoa Session at the FNU Campus in Nasinu, Tikoduadua says he, as a Minister, cannot blame history to be the explanation for the drug issues in Fiji today.

He says history is not just the study of the past but an explanation of the present. He says we have on our lap a challenge that concerns everyone in our society today, irrespective of which groups and communities we belong to, the problem collectively belongs to us.

He adds we may have a history of this problem from the different communities we come from and may be related to it, and it is something we cannot say that is not common. Tikoduadua says the challenge for him today as a Minister and a leader of a Ministry is what he is going to do about this problem in his term in government.

He says this contribution is part of a whole nation's effort in dealing with this issue that is second only to climate change, which is drug abuse. Tikoduadua says he acknowledges that his Ministry, which is responsible for security and keeping law and order, do not have all the solutions for this problem.