On 13th April, members of the LET ME project participated in the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) side event: Improving Prevention: Prioritizing Effective Approaches and Secondary Prevention. Event was organized by the New Zealand Drug Foundation with support of Canada government, Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation, Youth Organizations for Drug Action in Europe (YODA) and the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA).

Prevention is an essential component of drug policy and practice around the world. Primary prevention includes interventions to reduce demand for illegal drugs by preventing initiation of use, often tailored towards youth. While there are diverse approaches to primary prevention, interventions vary in their effectiveness and utility. Drug education for youth is a tenet of primary prevention yet work remains to ensure the most effective components of drug education are prioritized. Furthermore, secondary prevention efforts are often overlooked in prevention strategies and warrant further consideration and uptake at the national and international levels. A number of novel and potentially effective secondary prevention approaches may also prove promising in improving prevention efforts globally.

On behalf of the LET ME Consortium, Irena Molnar (Re Generation, Serbia) presented results of the Assessment on drug education, conducted in Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Serbia. See the presentation

As well, during the webinar Irena presented two videos:

  • One on the opinion on drug education nowadays by young members of the Consortium partners that are implementing project:
  • Another on the opinion on effective drug education by young members of the Consortium partners:

After Irena’s presentation, Ben Birks Ang – the Deputy Executive Director, Programmes for the New Zealand Drug Foundation presented about Tūturu programme. It’s a programme in the New Zealand for teachers and educators to implement a whole school approach to reduce drug and alcohol related harm in secondary schools. See the presentation

The last presentation was made by Dr. Dan Werb, who is an addictions epidemiologist and drug policy analyst, and is the Director of the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation. Dr. Werb presented Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation’s work on PRIMER (Preventing Injecting by Modifying Existing Responses), a multi-country mixed methods study that can be framed as evaluating secondary prevention efforts and highlights how harm reduction can achieve objectives related to preventing injection drug use. Dr. Werb shared that prevention of injection drug use can be accomplished through harm reduction interventions. See the presentation

After the panelists presentations, Manager of the International Unit within the Controlled Substances Directorate at Health Canada – Bobby Chauhan made few remarks, by noticing that traditional approaches to prevention do not work and that harm reduction should play a huge role in secondary prevention.

Watch webinar