Education Minister Daniel David on Tuesday said that the prevention of substance use must be done by specialists, with the involvement of parents and teachers, pointing out the importance of an interdisciplinary approach and scientifically validated treatments.
„Prevention must be done by those who know how to do prevention. It is in vain that we think and we all start to do prevention. It is not possible, you cannot do prevention only with specialists, you have to get the parents involved, you have to get the teachers involved as well. (…) A vulnerability factor for us – those centres to offer scientifically validated treatments. My message basically continues what has been tried so far – we need interdisciplinary approaches; we need approaches that involve several institutions. I would like the forms we have to have even more substance, the effect to be even clearer. In my opinion, we must take care to clean up around schools in terms of the presence of drugs and those who distribute drugs and I can say that, in recent years, probably in the last year, the Ministry of Interior, the local authorities have been active, they have changed many things for the better, which makes me happy,” David told the debate „The Drug Epidemic in Schools and High Schools,” organised by the Senate’s Committee on the Investigation of Abuses, Corruption Combatting and Petitions.
David added that the prevention of this phenomenon should be rethought in the sense that the key element should be related to behavioural changes of those targeted – pupils and students – that should come from the area of psychology.
„The second level refers to the way we do prevention, that is, the way we prepare students, for example, not to take drugs, and prevention (..) It should be rethought differently, because the key element should be related to what we call behavioural changes, which should come from the area of psychology. Of course, biological, medical, social information is important, but, in the end, you want to change behaviours and attitudes towards drug taking and here, probably, on the prevention side, we have to think about things that way. Also, for the prevention area, it is important to involve and have actions with teachers, with parents, so that they can be the first to detect the beginning or onset of such behaviours. Without them, it will be very difficult to be effective.”
He highlighted the importance of scientific validation of treatments prescribed to substance abusers. „The third level refers to treatments that need to be scientifically validated. Not every treatment we want to offer to control drug taking matters. The first line is related to the medical component. Of course, the psychological component must also come complementary to the drug treatment. If we cover these three levels, I am convinced that we can prevent substance use well and also have effective treatments for those who have reached this situation,” said David.
Attending the event were officials of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police, the National Union of Romanian Bars, the parents’ associations, the East European Anti-Drug Association, as well as the Administration of Hospitals and Medical Services in Bucharest.
