The current spate of drug abuse among the youth is as a result of irresponsible parenting, Nacada chair John Mututho has revealed.

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Speaking in Nakuru town on Tuesday, Mututho said most youth have taken to drug abuse because their parents have failed in their responsibility to guide them properly and monitor their movements.

Citing the recent cases in which minors some as young as nine were caught in discotheques with alcoholic drinks in Nairobi and Eldoret, the former Naivasha lawmaker said poor parenting was largely to blame for increased cases in the vice.

"If your nine-year-old son is going to a night club and you still call yourself a responsible parent, aren't you lying to yourself? It is because you have decided to be complicit in your duties as a parent that your child resorts to drugs," he posed.

The Nacada boss also faulted academic institutions for abetting cases of drug abuse among underage children, noting that they were not doing much to help young addicts overcome their predicament.

He, however, called on schools to constantly be on the lookout against students who were hooked on drugs and prescribe solutions to them as well as liaise with their guardians so that they could be assisted once and for all so as to save their peers too from falling victims.