Drug Awareness Month 2019 to focus on youth upliftment

The National Drug Abuse Prevention Unit (DAPU) is set to target the youth this year, Drug Abuse Prevention Officer, Malcolm St. Rose has revealed.

January is being observed as Drug Awareness Month, this year under the theme “Youth, Let’s Talk About Alcohol and Other Drugs—A Conversation That Could Change Your Life.”

Speaking on radio on Wednesday, St. Rose described the venture as a campaign to uplift the youth.

“We want to over-emphasize that drugs affect people negatively. Drugs affect you on an individual level, affects the family and the wider society. But we also want to seek to help the young people understand that they are very resourceful, that they can be empowered, and that there is so much good inside of them,” he explained. “So, we want to take this opportunity and every opportunity that we get, to help strengthen the resolve of the youth in terms of staying away from drugs [and] from the people who do drugs, as much as possible, and the places they do drugs.”

St. Rose spoke of the DAPU’s aim to “delay the first use of drugs among young people” in order to decrease experimentation and addiction. He implored the young people to learn from the mistakes of existing addicts.

St. Rose referred to a stabbing incident which occurred in Roseau, on Monday, December 31, 2018, which was committed by an addict who was allegedly suffering from drug-induced pyschosis at the time.

“We try to help them understand that you do not always have to try everything. You don’t have to wait to learn from your own mistakes; you can learn from the mistakes of others,” he stated. “So, for example, as unfortunate and as evil as this act is and has been, a young person looking on can say to themselves ‘You know what? I do not want to do drugs. Look at how much hurt that this one incident has caused, ripples throughout the nation. Look at the families involved and an innocent person has died; innocent people have been affected. I don’t want that to be said about me. These are not the kind of headlines I want to make.’”

According St. Rose, young people with that mindset can now learn and draw from the experience of this young man, as unfortunate as it is.

Meanwhile, Drug Abuse Prevention Officer Crephenia James-Turney, who was also a guest on the radio program, said that youth are being targeted as they are one of the most “vulnerable” sectors of the population.

James-Turney said that the DAPU has sought to involve parents in the sensitization program, in order to contribute to its success.

“We even have the Youth and Parent Encounter at one of our schools… we want to involve the parents, because you know, you talk to children and you tell them they are not supposed to do something, and then they are seeing the role model that they look up to, the parent doing it, it’s sending double signals to the children,” she explained. “So, what we are doing, we want to work with the parents, and the youth simultaneously.”