Stop Raiding Schools. Start Investing in Young People

Every few months, Ghanaians are treated to dramatic images of students being rounded up, searched, arrested, and publicly exposed in the name of the war on drugs. The latest school raids by the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) may generate headlines and social media applause, but they raise a troubling question: Are we solving the problem or simply performing enforcement for public consumption?

If the objective is reducing drug use among young people, the evidence is overwhelming: raids, arrests, and criminalisation do not work. For more than fifty years, countries around the world have waged a costly war on drugs. Trillions have been spent on enforcement. Millions have been arrested. Yet drugs remain available, drug markets continue to thrive, and new psychoactive substances emerge faster than authorities can ban them. If punitive crackdowns were the solution, the world would have won this war long ago.

Instead, what these policies have often produced is a cycle of stigma, exclusion, and wasted human potential.

When a student is arrested during a school raid, what happens next? They may face suspension or expulsion. They may carry the stigma of being labelled a criminal. Their education is disrupted. Their mental health deteriorates. Future job opportunities become limited. In many cases, the very intervention supposedly designed to "save" them ends up pushing them further into isolation and vulnerability.

That is not prevention. That is a policy failure.

Young people who use drugs are not the masterminds of Ghana's drug trade. They are often adolescents navigating peer pressure, trauma, mental health challenges, family instability, academic stress, and social exclusion. Treating them as criminals does nothing to address these underlying realities.

The more worrying question is this: Why is the young population in our schools becoming the face of NACOC's enforcement efforts while the major traffickers and organised criminal networks that fuel the drug trade remain largely out of public view?

It is far easier to stage a raid in a school than to dismantle sophisticated trafficking networks, follow money trails, prosecute drug barons, and disrupt organised crime. One generates headlines; the other delivers real results.

If Ghana is truly concerned about youth drug use, we should pay attention to what works. Iceland once had some of the highest rates of substance use among adolescents in Europe. Rather than criminalising teenagers, the country invested in after-school programs, sports, music, arts, family engagement, and youth development initiatives. Parents were encouraged to spend more time with their children. Communities created safe recreational spaces. Schools became active partners in prevention. The result was a dramatic decline in adolescent substance use over time.

Many universities worldwide have adopted student wellness centers that offer confidential counselling, peer support, mental health services, addiction support, and treatment referrals. Students are encouraged to seek help before problems escalate, not forced into hiding by fear of punishment.

Research consistently demonstrates that young people are less likely to engage in harmful substance use when they feel connected to their families, supported by their schools, engaged in meaningful activities, and able to access mental health services without stigma.

That is why Ghana should be investing in the following:

1. School-based counselling and psychological support services.
2. University wellness and recovery centres and harm reduction services 
3. Peer mentorship and peer-support programs.
4. Comprehensive drug education based on facts rather than fear.
5. Family support and parenting programs.
6. Sports, arts, leadership, and entrepreneurship initiatives for young people.
7. Diversion programs that refer young offenders to counselling and support instead of criminal prosecution.

Parents and communities must also become active partners in prevention. Drug use cannot be addressed through law enforcement alone. Families need the tools to identify early warning signs. Schools need stronger engagement with parents. Religious institutions, traditional leaders, youth groups, and civil society organisations should be helping to create supportive environments where young people can thrive.

The reality is simple! We cannot arrest our way out of youth drug use.

Raiding schools may create the appearance of action. It may produce dramatic photographs and reassuring headlines. But appearance is not impact. Public spectacle is not public policy. The true measure of success is not how many students are arrested. It is how many students are prevented from using drugs, how many receive support when they need it, and how many are allowed to build productive lives.

Our schools should be places of learning, growth, guidance, and second chances, not stages for performative displays of enforcement. The future leaders of Ghana are sitting in those classrooms today. If our response to their vulnerabilities is handcuffs and criminal records, we are not protecting them; we are failing them.

And no amount of showmanship can disguise that reality!

I conclude with the words of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan: "Drugs have destroyed lives, but bad government policies have destroyed many more lives." As we mark Support. Don't Punish. Day, may these words challenge us to rethink our drug policies, moving away from punishment and toward approaches grounded in health, human rights, dignity, and evidence. Let us choose policies that save lives rather than destroy them. Support Don’t Punish ! Care not Handcuffs!

By Maria-Goretti Ane -Loglo Esq

Health law, Drug Policy  and harm reduction advocate 

When an institution changes the rules after the game has started: The Legal Problem with Retrospective Administrative Directives in Ghana

Here is a question I often return to because it sits at the heart of fairness in public life: what happens when an institution changes the rules after people have already acted under the old ones?

In recent times, concerns have been raised in different academic spaces about universities issuing new administrative directives, sometimes on graduation requirements and sometimes on promotion criteria, and applying them retrospectively to students or staff who were already well into their programs.

At first glance, it may look like a simple administrative adjustment. But legally, it is far more serious than that.

In Ghana, the starting point is the Constitution itself. Article 23 requires that administrative bodies, including public universities, must act fairly, reasonably, and within the law. That single requirement carries significant weight in our legal system.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Awuni v. West African Examinations Council is often the clearest illustration of what fairness means in practice. WAEC cancelled students’ results without giving them a chance to be heard. The Court intervened decisively, holding that such action violated Article 23 and the principles of natural justice.

The message from that case is simple but powerful: when a public decision affects someone’s rights or future, fairness is not optional; it is mandatory.

Now apply that principle to a university context. A student enters a program under clearly published academic regulations. Those regulations are not informal suggestions; they are the legal and administrative framework that governs the student’s academic life.

If, halfway through that journey, the university increases graduation requirements and applies them to those already enrolled, the legal issue is not just administrative inconvenience. It becomes a question of constitutional fairness.

Another important doctrine comes into play here: legitimate expectation. This principle, developed in cases such as the UK’s GCHQ case and ex parte Coughlan, protects individuals who have relied on clear rules or consistent administrative practice by public authorities.

Put simply, if a university tells you through published regulations that 120 credits are required to graduate, you are entitled to organise your academic life around that standard. Changing it retrospectively disrupts more than planning; it undermines trust in public administration.

Ghanaian courts have also consistently affirmed that administrative action is not beyond scrutiny. 

In Republic v SSNIT & Attorney-General, Ex parte Ernest Thompson, the Supreme Court clarified that administrative decisions are subject to judicial review where they violate fairness, legality, or reasonableness. More recently, in Republic v Bank of Ghana, Ex parte Hoda Holdings Ltd. (2024), the Court reaffirmed Article 23 as the constitutional anchor for the review of administrative fairness.

Taken together, these decisions reinforce a consistent principle: public institutions must exercise power within constitutional limits, and fairness is one of those limits.

It is important to stress that universities are not prevented from changing rules. Academic standards evolve, and institutions must retain the ability to improve them. The legal concern arises not from change itself but from retroactive application without fairness, consultation, or transitional protection.

The courts generally recognise that individuals acquire certain expectations once they enter a program or employment structure. These expectations do not make institutions powerless, but they do require that changes be implemented in a manner that does not arbitrarily disadvantage those who relied on existing rules.

In legal terms, this is where concepts such as procedural impropriety, irrationality, and legitimate expectation come together. Where a retrospective directive disrupts vested academic progress without clear justification or transitional arrangements, it becomes vulnerable to legal challenge.

What remedies exist in such situations? Ghanaian law provides a robust framework through judicial review in the High Court. Affected persons may seek:

1. Certiorari, to quash the decision 

2. Declaration that the directive is unlawful or unconstitutional 

3. Prohibition, to stop enforcement 

4. Mandamus, to compel proper application of the original rules 

5. And in appropriate cases, damages for loss suffered 

These are not technical legal luxuries. They are safeguards designed to ensure that public institutions remain accountable to the people they serve.

Ultimately, this issue goes beyond universities. It speaks to a deeper principle of governance: predictability is part of justice. People must be able to arrange their lives based on rules that are stable, known, and fairly applied.

When institutions change the rules after the game has started, they risk more than legal challenge. They risk eroding the trust that makes public systems work in the first place.

And in a constitutional democracy like ours, that is not a small matter.

Fairness is not only a legal requirement; it is a public promise.