Abstract
Capital punishment, also called the death penalty has been abolished in law and practice in several nations, yet a few percentages of world nations still subscribe to the practice, particularly for offences like drug trafficking. For many Asian countries, drug trafficking is regarded as one of the most dangerous offenses, and still attracts death penalty or a life sentence for those found guilty. Utilitarianism is the ethical theory that interrogates actions not from morality of right and wrong but from the angle of consequences of giving pleasure or happiness, and causing harm or pain. The question is, if drug trafficking is such a dangerous crime why do many African countries turn a blind eye to its consequences? This paper employs ethical theory of consequences to interrogate the effect of drug and substance abuse amongst young people in Nigeria, West Africa. its objectives include examining the challenge of addiction and the consequences for future generation, it evaluates the theory of benefit when harmful substances branded as carbonated drinks sold to the public and the effect of gradual addiction of innocent public, it critically analyses the problem of drug addiction and the challenge of detoxification. The paper employs literature review, and critical analysis to recommend and conclude on what the government should be doing to defend its citizens, it proposes what communities, nongovernmental organization, and parents should be doing to protects their wards, including what social agency should be doing to show intolerance for the social menace of substance abuse.
Keywords: Capital-Punishment. Substance-Abuse. Indigenous-Detoxification. Utilitarianism.
Author name(s):
Onoyona-Ekeocha, Isoken Erhowo (PhD).
University of Ibadan
Copyright © [2026] The Author(s). Published by the Journal of People and Worldviews (JPW). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are properly credited.