In order to tackle the issue of increasing cases of addiction, a Nationwide Drug Prevention Awareness Campaign was launched in Thimphu yesterday.
The campaign is aimed at understanding addiction from a basic and in-depth approach. It involves stakes holders from all relevant agencies to bring out proper and effective measures to tackle the issue.
“This time we are trying to give ownership to the respective community. For example, in schools, we want to give ownership and develop capacity within the school. They will try to solve their problem within themselves. When it comes to referral cases it will be referred through linkages between them,” Dawa Penjor, the Program Officer with Chithuen Phendhey Association, said.
Addiction is also described as a complex condition, a brain disease that is manifested by compulsive substance use despite harmful consequences.
The Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshering said addiction is a disease and it needs to be treated accordingly and effectively.
“If addiction was considered as a disease by our predecessor, probably by now we would be having an addiction control program under Ministry of Health. We don’t have that. Better late than never. Things have just come out and it’s to our knowledge that this particular chapter deserves a lot of attention and going by the rule book we did not do so much.”
Apart from providing prevention knowledge to 18,000 youth on ill effects of drug abuse the campaign will also train 3,000 youth and form a peer-based group support system in respective schools.
The campaign with the theme “Bhutan Pledge- beyond addiction” will kick start from 15th of this month from Paro and will cover nine dzongkhags within the span of one year.
