Substance Abuse Prevention

Substance Abuse Prevention

Drug prevention is an evidence-based approach built on a scientific discipline. The natural course of drug prevention is discussed in epidemiology and the phenomenon of disease carrier (Etiological model) is described in detail. However, the simple meaning of drug prevention consists of three steps. The first step is to prevent a child or young person from trying drugs as soon as possible. Secondly, if a person tries to try drugs due to the positive image of the drug, the first use of the drug should be delayed as much as possible. The third step here is to prevent someone who is already using drugs before he becomes addicted to drugs. But the scientific background of this simple preventive concept is taken a bit wider. That is, a child or young person can be defined as the maximum contribution to the activities of the society, as long as they are physically and mentally healthy, with their maximum potential.

The most important thing in a country's drug prevention is to carry out initial operations to rescue children and youth from the use of drugs that are controlled by the law. Primary importance in this classification is tobacco related products and alcoholic products. The main reason is that these two types are called gateway drugs and children get their first experience of drug use by experimenting with these drugs. For this reason, the most important demand of prevention programs is to prevent children from using regular drugs as much as possible. Looking at global drug use trends over the past two decades, a significant decline in tobacco use is shown. But there is no industry that does not work for it. This trend can be seen especially in Sri Lanka. For this purpose, children can be seen as an alternative to the use of smokeless tobacco and the use of electronic cigarettes.

In general, it is estimated that 1.5 million people use smokeless tobacco in Sri Lanka. Also another 1.5 million are directly consuming tobacco related products. A significant number of these people are children under the age of 18. This implies that there are deficiencies in environmental preventive interventions and behavioral interventions to reduce drug demand in Sri Lanka. Drug prevention in a country is controlled on two methods. Reduce supply first. What is important here is to bring illegal drugs under control through law enforcement. Cannabis, heroin, methamphetamine, LSD and other banned substances are considered illegal drugs. The second strategy is demand reduction measures.

Demand reduction policies basically have two strategies. These are environmental preventive interventions and behavioral preventive interventions. Environmental interventions include the formulation of policies, laws, ordinances, conventions, etc. for drug demand reduction, and their widespread implementation and evaluation. Although Sri Lanka has strong and stable policies and laws, the performance is extremely weak. On the other hand, the impact on the implementation of laws and regulations is also great.

Because of these weaknesses, the positive effects of behavioral intervention have been ineffective. In preventive education, the children of Sri Lanka were currently gaining a very high level of knowledge through school, family and youth-based universal prevention programs. But the weakness of policy implementation has added a significant burden. Regular age at which legal drugs can be purchased, affordability of single cigarettes, 60% more graphic warnings on cigarette packages, number of alcohol and cigarette outlets relative to population, distance of these outlets from the center of schools and religious premises, alcohol sales policies such as curfew hours and responsible alcohol service provision, formal taxation of regular drugs and the formula for increasing prices, are urgently needed.

Behavioral interventions have shown significant progress in recent years. Thousands of school-based, family-based, youth-based, media-based, community-based and workplace-based prevention interventions have been implemented in Sri Lanka by the public, private and non-governmental sectors. But weaknesses in policy implementation have further weakened progress. Thus, some people promote the drug journey from using legal drugs to illegal drugs. Beyond that, resorting to extremely high-cost and zero-result activities such as crime, imprisonment, rehabilitation centers, and treatment programs is unsustainable for a country like Sri Lanka. But in any case, it is something that should be remembered again and again to be more attractive to a program with a higher cost.

Pradeep Kumara Koholanegedara

Assistant Director of Preventive Education and Training Division

National Dangerous Drugs Control Board in Sri Lanka