A Health Based Approach Within The UN Conventions:

Examples Of Practice

Fay Watson, Vice Chair: EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs

EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs:

The Civil Society Forum on Drugs (CSF) meets at least once a year and serves as a platform for informal exchanges of views and information between the European Commission and civil society organisations.

In 2013, 40 organisations became members of the Civil Society Forum for a two year period

We support the delivery of the Public Health Components of the EU Drug Strategy (2013-2020)

Drug demand interventions defined as “equally important and mutually reinforcing”:

1) Prevention (environmental, universal, selective & indicated) 2) Early Detection and Intervention3) Risk and Harm Reduction4) Treatment5) Rehabilitation6) Social Integration7) Recovery

1) Prevention (environmental, universal, selective & indicated)

Comprehensive approaches involving community, school and family were found effective in a systematic review of 222 studies at preventing-delaying-reducing use :

- of cannabis and all illicit drugs when compared with community-only programmes and school-community programmes

- In high-risk individuals when compared to low-risk individuals

2) Early Detection and Intervention

School-based programmes developed with the EU-Dap Model that implement concepts of social influence and life skills were found to be effective, even at 1 year follow-up and particularly with boys (Faggiano et al, 2010)

www.eudap.net

3) Risk and Harm Reduction

Opioid substitution treatment (OST) reduces the risk of HIV infection among those who continue to inject drugs

4) Treatment

Family Motivational Interventions (FMI), The Netherlands

For cannabis using patients with schizophrenia, early intensive interventions are not very effective due to non-compliance. FMI was developed for this target group. The intervention has an inpatient phase (2 months) followed by 12 month outpatient treatment. Patients as well as caregivers (i.e. parents, family) were assigned either FMI or psychoeducation.

The FMI group showed significant decrease in mean days of cannabis use and in mean grams of cannabis use. In both groups, carers (family members) significantly improved on all outcomes (burden of disease, coping style and mental health).

5) Rehabilitation

Prisoners with drug problems in Italy can spend a 3 year prison sentence in rehabilitation tackling their drug dependence, learning new skills and building positive relationships instead of prison.

6) Social Integration

Contextual factors (e.g. social attitudes to drug users, local and national economic prosperity, standards of living in the general population, professional training, stability in problem drug users’ lives, etc.) are extremely important moderators of success related to social integration. BUT social integration still not placed at the heart of drug or social strategies.

7) Recovery

World Health Organisation (WHO) found combined psychosocial (contingency management, community reinforcement, psychotherapeutic counselling and family therapy) and pharmacological assistance were found to be effective in a systematic review of five randomised control trials in:

• Increasing rates of completion of treatment • Reducing rates of relapse at follow-up

Any Questions?