10% plan to reduce the consumption of drugs in three years - Público.pt

entered this Friday in public discussion the National Plan for the Reduction of Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies. The strategy, which will expire between 2013 and 2020, addresses the additions with and without psychoactive substances, taking into account the various life cycles and sets quantitative targets: the prevalence of drug use in Portugal need to fall 10% in the next three years.

the evaluations to the National Plan Against Drugs and Drug Addiction 2005/2012 and the National Plan for Reducing Alcohol Problems Linked to the 2010/2012 resulting in the option to extend the coordination structure to addictive behaviors that no alcohol and illicit drugs.

delay in submission of the plan is attributed to the change in December 2011, extinguished the Institute for Drugs and Drug Addiction and created the Service and Intervention in Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies (SICAD), transferring to the regional health in response to the phenomenon.

According to the document, the portal accessible health, “the strategy followed and used models are the basis of a proper public policy, which needs improvement and investment.” Is then outlined this new strategy, assuming that the budget will not shrink.

The text is a kind of treatise on dependencies. Is very focused on reducing supply and demand. And it should be complemented with action plans based on diagnosis.

strategy, now under discussion, proposes that intervention to make light of the social contexts and life cycle. These cycles include pregnancy, prenatal, children up to nine years, children and young people from 10 to 24, adults 25 to 64 and seniors aged 65. The aim is to reduce all the dependencies of all ages.

The prevalence of alcohol consumption and illicit drug use vary by gender, the type of substance and age. Boys tend to try first than girls and use more over a lifetime.
Available data show how consumption can become problematic very early. It is estimated that between 2006 and 2010 there have been 222 cases of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome per ten thousand births in 2011 alone, have been diagnosed 12 cases of cirrhosis and alcoholic hepatitis in children up to nine years.

The aim is to reduce the prevalence of any illicit drug by 2.3% to 1.8% by 2020. Reduction goals outlined for the harmful use of alcohol are no less ambitious: in three years, the prevalence of drunkenness situations must go from 5.1% to 4.6%.