You are in Artículos Volume 41 Number 2

Tying up loose ends and casting off to undertake new projects. Drug addiction prevention in Portugalete town: from experience to new challenges

abstract

There is an atmosphere of doubt in the air about the work done in matters of prevention\r\nof drug addictions. It would seem that drugs do not matter anymore and there are scores\r\nto be settled. The city council of Portugalete has been in the thick of it for 28 years with\r\nmajor technical and economic efforts.\r\nTo sum things up: we propose dropping burdensome ballast, questioning and looking\r\nover with critical spirit what has been done before, running away from nostalgia, from\r\nold times and saving what has proved to be effective from the fire; we should be leaving\r\nthings done by force of habit aside and trying to use our left hand if we are right-handed\r\nand the other way round.\r\nWe should be assuming the risk of making mistakes, willing to learn from them, to call\r\nthings by their name and keep moving on.\r\nWe should review and analyse some experiences acquired working with young persons\r\nthat give good results and, with the experience gained, head into other scenarios where\r\nintervention is needed.\r\nOur commitment should be for building people, whether there are social concerns about\r\ndrugs or not, which is what we have done for all this time and, maybe, the only thing we\r\nreally know how to do.

Keywords:

Drug addiction, local prevention, concern-lack of concern about drugs, reviewing strategies, new challenges, young people themselves as agents working on prevention.

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Authors

Raimundo Parreño Martínez - Ayuntamiento de Portugalete
Marta Azkarretazabal Mendiguren - Ayuntamiento de Portugalete