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Category: News

Published: 11 December 2013

This section is designated for publication of recent prevention and treatment initiatives implemented by ECAD member cities. Those of our members who would like to shed more light on the successfull programmes, actions or conferences, planned or implemented are welcome to contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. This is an opportunity to share experiences, introduce ideas or get some inspiration for your projects!

Trakai, Lithuania

The Municipality of the region of Trakai has since years a well structured program concerning drug addiction control and prevention, operated by a commission who coordinates activities as well as the implementation of the strategic policies. Since the year 2001 two drug addiction programs have been implemented. This has resulted in better organized health development activities in a variety of aspects. Parental programs as well as creating of self-help groups is important ingredients in Trakai’s activities. At the moment a new drug addiction and prevention program is being prepared, based on the analyze of previous experiences and the current situation in the region.

Klaipeda, Lithuania

In 2010, the City of Klaipeda became the first city in Lithuania in WHO, in the Healthy Cities network. Due to this, Klaipeda has committed itself to provide conditions, and constantly induce its citizens to pursue healthy lifestyles. On a regular basis Klaipeda holds various actions to commemorate WHO days, different events, competitions, campaigns to propagate and publicize social health as well as organize and support prevention projects prepared by NGO’s, schools and other institutions.

Tallinn, Estonia

The European HIV conference 2011 will be held in Tallinn. The European HIV Conference, focusing on the challenges and accomplishments regarding HIV prevention and treatment in Eastern European countries will be held in Tallinn from 25 to 27 May 2011. The international conference will convene over 500 health care professionals from 53 countries in Tallinn. The ‘HIV in European Region – Unity and Diversity’ Conference is organised by the Estonian National Institute for Health Development in cooperation with World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Offices on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and other international organisations. The principal sponsor for the Conference is the European Union Executive Agency for Health and Consumers. The Conference will create opportunities for the professionals in the field to exchange practices and knowledge and therefore facilitate the partnership between various parties and institutions. The Conference places an emphasis on persons injecting drugs, who are the major risk group in spreading of HIV infection in the Eastern Europe. Both the preventive measures and health services aimed for that target group will be discussed. Additional discussion topics of significance will be HIV testing and ensuring a systematic availability of health care services to the persons already infected. One of the expected outcomes of the Conference will be the development of recommendations to the European Commission, European governments, international organisations and other initiatives on how to improve collaboration between the countries. 

In 2011, Tallinn is implementing an European Social Fund sponsored project ‘Support services for the vocational rehabilitation of the persons with addictive disorders and their close ones’. The objective of the project is to achieve a situation where the persons with addictive disorders and their close ones will not leave the labour market, including they will not become discouraged to find employment due to the problems related to drug addiction. The support services for the persons with addictive disorders and their close ones carried out within the project will be implemented through a third sector organisation specialised in providing support to the persons with addictive disorders and their close ones. The size of the target group is 100 persons. 44 workshops for the persons with addictive disorders and 44 workshops for their close ones will be held within the framework of the project. In order to map the needs of the target group, a qualitative survey will be prepared in a joint effort with the service provider; the sample will consist of the persons with addictive disorders and their close ones. ESF support enables the development of support services for the persons with addictive disorders and their close ones up to the year 2012 (included).

Vila Real de St. António, Portugal

Drug addiction has been a growing social problem lately in Vila Real de St. António and one of the top priorities for the City Council is to support households with members suffering from drug addiction. This aid has been accomplished through the developments of several actions. Among these can be mentioned subsidies given to therapeutic communities in order to finance costs not covered by the Health Ministry in Portugal, so that an actual recovery and reintegration in society can happen.

Gävleborg, Sweden

The County of Gävleborg has been traditionally very active within the network of ECAD cities. The city of Gävle is a part of ECAD Youth in Europe project and is the initiator of educational courses for drug policy coordinators working with prevention programmes in Swedish municipalities.

Have a look at the Educational Course for Drug Policy Coordinators planned for 2011 in PDF (Swedish)

Action Programme for Gävleborg 2010 (PDF)
Action Plan for Gävleborg 2011 (PDF)

The City of Niš, Serbia

Primary Prevention in regards to Addiction Diseases

The problem of addiction diseases is the problem on global level and the prevention of cigarettes, alcohol and drug abuse is one of the basic health objectives everywhere in the world. Our state prepared National Strategy document which together with the Action Plan envisaged basic elements and steps for fighting the drugs abuse.

The City of Niš did not wait for a national document to be prepared to actually do something. 15 years ago the City of Niš undertook first measures in relation to preventing the addiction diseases and set that as the primary goal in the functioning of local administration. The primary prevention in the City of Niš applies the most contemporary methods and techniques which treat human behavior. The programmes which are applied in the work with the children, youth and their parents respect certain principles which have to be core elements of any good quality programme for addiction diseases prevention.

- The basic principle is improvement of protective factors and the reduction of the risk factors.

- Besides information about the dangers and risks, prevention programmes include:

 Learning skills how to resist social pressures.

 Strengthening positive attitudes against drugs abuse.

 Increasing social competencies (communication, peer relations, self-efficiency and assertiveness)

The imperative of any prevention programme is continuity – repeated intervention in order to achieve the prevention objectives.

 Prevention programmes for adolescents are based on interactive methods such as peer discussion groups trying to avoid one-way channel of communication and information dissemination.

 Prevention programme must refer to all forms drugs abuse including cigarettes and alcohol.

 Prevention programmes include parents which should improve their positive attitudes and be open for possibilities of having family discussions about illegal and legal drugs setting the clear family rules related to drug abuse.

 Prevention focused on family gives better results than the strategy focused only on parents or only on children.

 Prevention programme compulsory part is to increase the public awareness in the community through intensive media campaign (video clips on TV, radio jingles, organisation of public events, public debates, round table, printing promotion material).

 Prevention programmes should be adapted to age, development, mentality, contemporary trends and culture sensitivity.

 Efficient prevention programmes are paying themselves out. Each dinar spent on good quality prevention programme saves 10 dinars for the community expenses for medical treatment.


Research

At the end of 2008 the Group for Prevention of Addiction Diseases at Nis City Administration for Education, Culture and Sport carried out the research on how spread was the drug abuse and use of cigarettes and alcohol among the pupils at primary and secondary school. This is the second research of its kind. The first one was carried out in 2004. The survey sample covered 10% of the population. The sample gave date about the dispersion of drug abuse and about protective and risk factors.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The objective of this research is getting relevant information about the abuse of alcohol, cigarettes and drugs among the pupils of primary and secondary schools and tracking of the changes happening in this area. The obtained data would serve to adapt our prevention programmes and interventions to the real needs of the population. They can also serve as a kind of evaluation. We expect that the obtained data will help us to strengthen the protective to weaken the risk factors.

OBTAINED DATA: The sample covered 1015 pupils from primary schools and 1215 pupils from secondary schools. 55% were boys and 43,9% were girls. 

The pupils were asked to evaluate their present lives. The most of them felt happy or very happy while 21/5 felt quite happy. The feeling varies with the age – the youngest feel the happiest while with the age that percentage decreases.
They can talk more easily with mothers about things that are worrying them but they talk the most with their friends.

44,6% know a lot about drugs, cigarettes and alcohol while 24,9% know everything. (The acquired knowledge or information come from TV shows, films, books, newspapers and magazines, then from parents, school, friends and for 14,5% from friends who are using drugs. The fact that should be emphasized is that 25,9% of final year secondary school students have friends who are reusing drugs.

51,3% boys and 69,7% girls never drink. 15,4% boys and 3,1% girls were drunk more than 10 times.

They usually try alcohol at the age of 14 although the current trends show that some try it at the age of 12.

Details

Category: News

Published: 08 November 2013

Here is a significant piece of information that ECAD is glad to be able to give its members: a backstage of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs Intercessional meeting that took place on Tuesday, November 5 at the UN International Centre in Vienna.

We publish a short summary of one of the CND Intercessional meetings that was held among the UN Member States, with a direct impact on international drug policy.

ECAD is a member of Vienna NGO Committee (VNGOC) that is advocating for a recognized role of NGO grass-root work by the UN and in its Member States. Those of our members who are well-aware of their national participation at the CND events and can take part in these meetings in a state delegation - please do so. Also, we need your voice and active participance in the VNGOC, so contact us with your feedback, suggestions and ideas!

NGOs were allowed to be present at the meeting this Tuesday, so many of the well-financed harm-reduction and Open Society offspring-NGOs visited Vienna indeed.
Michel Perron, Chair of the VNGOC, made a proposal for a Joint Ministerial Statement of the 2014 High Level Review by the CND. Any NGO, a member of the VNGOC, can influence this kind of proposal, we need to be vociferous and watchful!

Have a look at the wording of the document to be used at the coming 2014 CND - directly connected to the UN Conventions on drugs, -  being formed.

Here is the summary that ECAD can share with you, thanks to our work in the Vienna NGO Committee on drugs (PDF) :

The debate was based on the Chair’s draft of 30 October, and was directed to finding political consensus. As requested by states, the 30 October draft’s structure was changed to the format as suggested by res 56/12, i.e. Achievements, Challenges, Priorities for the three thematic pillars: Demand Reduction, Supply Reduction and Money Laundering and Judicial Cooperation

The first part of the meeting allowed MS to share wording suggestions on the whole document, the second part tried to clean up the proposals in the draft para by para to establish acceptable language. At the end of the meeting, only the first 6 paragraphs had been discussed with regard to cleaning up, but were not finalized yet.

Key issues

Paragraph 6 Decriminalization and Legalization

“[Member states] take note of the worldwide active debate on the consideration of new approaches towards tackling the World Drug Problem, including a greater focus on public health, the well-being of users and the demand aspect of the drug problem, the legalization and decriminalization of the use of certain drugs, and emphasize the need for an open, transparent and forward looking discussion on these issues within the multilateral system.”

The wording of the paragrph was opposed by many delegations (USA, CAN, ITA, VEN, ARG, ESP, RUS, CHN, GER, SWE, PAK and others). Deletion or alternative wording was suggested during the first part of the session. During the clean-up part, suddenly POR showed its support for the wording “decriminalization” and refused deletion of the whole para. It was decided to settle the issue during informal and the meeting closed after that.

Para 9 Civil Society

While ARG questioned the civil society contribution to the review process, most other comments were in support of civil society. IRL mentioned positively VNGOC and the survey. AUT, ESP and NOR made some useful suggestions.MEX suggested to follow the wording from the GA omnibus resolution of last year.

As the clean-up negotiations ended before, no final wording was decided on.

Para 14 Harm reduction

USA, CAN, COL, CHN suggested alternative wordings to harm reduction

Para 41: Linking drug trafficking, corruption and other forms of organized crime

Hardly any other para was mentioned more often; While seven countries suggested deletion of this para, twelve other supported it.

Next steps

The Chair has published the draft text with track changes as established during the meeting. (ECAD has it in the Head Office) The next informal meeting is Tuesday 12 November. The next intersessional meeting will be on 18 and 19 November. The Chair is pushing for a final text at the end of November, but it seems that delegations were not too excited about the speed of the proceedings.

Details

Category: News

Published: 22 October 2013

The most interesting presentations were made by Giovanni Serpelloni, the Head of the Drug Control Policy Department of the Presidency at the Council of Ministers, who also directed the Center for Preventive Medicine; Daniela Parolaro, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Insubria; and Dr. Gilberto Gerra, addiction specialist and director at the Prevention Department at the Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC in Vienna.

"The unbearable lightness of cannabis"

Panel of prominent speakers included Raymond Yans, the President of the INCB, General Arthur Dean, President of CADCA (Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America), John  Geluardi, author of "Cannabiz: The explosive rise of medical marijuana industry", 2012 and more.

Panel discussion was focused i.a. on social disapproval of marijuana use, something that is effective and scientifically proven. A research supported by NIDA (US National Institue on drug abuse) showed that the greater the social dispproval about the drug use was, the lower was the use of marijuana amongst adolescents (Source: Keyes, K.M. et al., "The social norms of birth cohorts and adolescent marijuana use in the US. 1976-2007, Addiction, 2011). When the level of disapproval was 90%, the use in the last year was 17%. At the level of disapproval of 47%, the use in the last year grew to 49%.

Also Mr Serpelloni pointed out that cannabis users get a degeneration of white matter in the brain, based on the research of  Neuroscience Verona Group, G. Serpelloni, 2011. Another research paper that is important to take notice of is "Effects of long-term cannabis use on anoxal fibre connectivity", by Andrew Zalesky, Nadia Solowij, Murat Yucel et al. In addiction to that, another scientific paper was mentioned in the discussion, concerning the neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife that persistent cannabis users show (by Madeline H. Meier, Avshalom Caspi et al., 2012).

The visit to SanPatrignano Community was truly inspiring. ECAD group had an opportunity to visit textile craftmanship and wallpaper production, printing works, winery and have a private session of questions and answers with the senior staff of SanPatrignano.

ECAD Seminar focused on two drug addiction communities, a Norwegian rehabilitation centre for drug addicts, Jegersberg and an Italian addiction treatment community in the region of Lazio, Mondo Nuovo. Seminar materials will be published here in a couple of days.

And now a few glimpses from ECAD and SanPatrignano WeFree Days-2013:















It has become a tradition for ECAD members to participate in WeFree Days and ECAD seminarium at one of the world´s largest therpeutic communities close to Rimini in Italy. San Patrignano has taken in young people into the recovery programme for free since 1978, offering them home, healthcare, legal assistance and opportunity to study and learn a job.

This year`s Preliminary Programme of the WeFree Days with ECAD can be downloaded here (PDF). ECAD thanks warmly SanPatrignano Community for the generous opportunity to visit and share the WeFree Days with the community members. It was a wonderful experience for all in our group!

Details

Category: News

Published: 09 October 2013

• Allessandro Diottasi, President of Comunita´ Mondo Nuovo - History, mission and activities of the therapeutic community Mondo Nuovo, one of the oldest communities for drug addicts in Italy and the biggest one in the Lazio region
• Kristine Vigsnes and Tron Offergaard from Kristiansand, Norway - Update on the development of the Jegersberg Gård - rehabilitation centre in Norway, based on the example of San Patrignano.

Don`t forget a sojourn tax of € 2,50 in cash to be paid per person/per day to the Hotel Feldberg on departure!

We are looking forward to seeing you in Riccione!