Keril Wright, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
A SEVEN-COUNTRY Caribbean workshop on drug prevention was held last week in response to the results of a recent study conducted by the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO), in association with the World Health Organisation (WHO), which showed that more than one fifth of Caribbean youths abuse drugs and alcohol.
The workshop was held in the Dominican Republic and attended by 30 representatives of Caribbean countries including Jamaica, and organisations.
Among the highlights of the gathering was the drug prevention model - Integrated Demand Reduction (IDER) - which was promoted by representatives of Jamaica's National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA).
IDER was initiated in Jamaica and is aimed at curbing the abuse of drugs through community programmes which promote a healthy drug-free lifestyle, according to Ellen Campbell-Grizzle, director of Information and Research at the NCDA. She said this is achieved through community mobilisation and empowerment, public education, education interventions in schools, social marketing, health promotion, economic alternatives, social and cultural experiences, security, research and development, international co-operation and sports development.
Michael Tucker, executive director of the NCDA, and Daphne Nelson, deputy executive director, represented Jamaica.
Improved model
According to Mrs. Campbell-Grizzle, the other countries saw the IDER model as one that could bring improved results to drug prevention.
The PAHO/WHO study also showed that the substance abuser cited the loss of friends and key relationships as the most common cause of their addiction.
In addition, the Caribbean Adolescent Survey, found that more than 10 per cent of youth reported using a substance once a month or more, with the same number worrying about their parents' use of alcohol and drugs.
It is worrying trends like these, which prompted the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) and the Government of the Dominican Republic, to sponsor the workshop.
Conclusions of the workshop will be channelled to CARICOM, which had committed to prioritising substance demand reduction programmes in the region at the Caribbean Co-ordination Mechanism (CCM) Task Force Meetings in May.
Other participants at the workshop included representatives from Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago, the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the Organisation of American States (OAS), and non-governmental organisations.
