OSIJEK OSIJEK, Oct 7 (Hina) - A two-day seminar on the prevention of drug abuse was held in the eastern Croatian town of Osijek on Thursday. There are 13,000 registered drug addicts, of whom 12,000 are heroine addicts, in Croatia.
Since 1990 the number of drug addicts has increased by 300 percent, the president of the Government Commission for the Prevention of Drug Abuse, Slavko Sakoman, said at the seminar, entitled "Youth Leisure Time - With the Youth Against Drug Addiction." Sakoman pointed to the insufficient financial support of the state for projects from the National programme on drug abuse prevention. It is expected that between 1,000 and 1,200 drug addicts will seek medical treatment this year, Sakoman said, adding another problem was that lately the interest in drug consumption had increased among young people. What slightly alleviates this problem is the fact that the number of addicts seeking help from loca
INTERNATIONAL MEETING ON DRUG PREVENTION HELD IN OSIJEK
OSIJEK, Oct 7 (Hina) - A two-day seminar on the prevention of drug
abuse was held in the eastern Croatian town of Osijek on Thursday.
There are 13,000 registered drug addicts, of whom 12,000 are
heroine addicts, in Croatia. Since 1990 the number of drug addicts
has increased by 300 percent, the president of the Government
Commission for the Prevention of Drug Abuse, Slavko Sakoman, said
at the seminar, entitled "Youth Leisure Time - With the Youth
Against Drug Addiction."
Sakoman pointed to the insufficient financial support of the state
for projects from the National programme on drug abuse prevention.
It is expected that between 1,000 and 1,200 drug addicts will seek
medical treatment this year, Sakoman said, adding another problem
was that lately the interest in drug consumption had increased
among young people. What slightly alleviates this problem is the
fact that the number of addicts seeking help from local drug
prevention centres is on the increase and that those are mostly
young people with short drug experience, Sakoman said.
The number of drug addicts in relation to the overall population is
the highest in Zadar, which is followed by Split, Pula, Sibenik and
Zagreb.
Stressing the importance of drug prevention, Sakoman pointed to
another problem in the treatment of drug addicts - lack of room in
rehabilitation centres given the high number of drug addicts.
Sakoman also criticised changes to the Penal Law envisaging lighter
sentences for persons possessing small quantities of drugs and
treating the possession of small quantities as an offence and not a
criminal act. He objects that the changes fail to define what can be
regarded a small quantity of drugs.
The Osijek meeting was organised by the Osijek city authorities and
the international foundation Hanns-Seidel from Bavaria. A
representative for the foundation, Angela Adamovich, said the
foundation was active in 70 countries and stressed the importance
of transferring the debate about drug prevention into the
parliament.
Igor Krampac from Maribor spoke about Slovenia's experience in
fighting drug abuse and the social rehabilitation of occasional
drug addicts.
Vesna Bilandzic, Deputy State Prosecutor, presented data from the
Ministry of Justice which point to an increase in the number of drug
addicts among the prison population.
Last year, 1,221 drug addicts passed through the prison system.
"According to the annual report of the County State Prosecutor's
Office in Osijek, drug abuse accounted for 36.58 percent of all
criminal acts committed by persons of age and it is the most
dominant form of crime," Bilandzic said.
Participating in the meeting were also internationally recognised
experts on drug prevention, Pavel Csader and Jan Balla from
Slovakia and Martin Sijes from the Netherlands.
(hina) rml