Drug abuse. Tendencies and ways to overcome it

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At the same time, the anti-narcotics strategy must reflect the irksome particularities and complicated nature of this phenomenon as it combines two interrelated sides - that of illness and that of crime. This defines our approach to drug abuse as a medical, as well as a social problem and it determines what steps and means must be chosen.

Drug Abuse as an Object of Government Action:

Narcotics-related issues, including organizational ones, cannot be isolated either from the social, economic, political, historical, legislative, medical, and biological problems or from other social pathologies that call for counteraction. The definition of drug abuse as a phenomenon of multiple factors is not therefore accidental.

Therefore, efficient counteraction requires much organization and precisely targeted moves.

Such a stance justifies the view of drug abuse as an object for state action.

This approach makes a broad analysis of the wide-ranging problems and ways to solve them possible. Besides, drug abuse helps to define who the subject (subjects) of influence are, its (their) condition and functioning, the influence its (their) structure projects, as well as choice of goals and function. These properties also define clear goals and a reasonable choice of means to attain them as well as to ensure an overall realization.

Observing the fundamental properties of drug abuse, researchers call upon us to be ready for new and unusual capability of this phenomenon to adapt to any conditions and manifest itself in new forms in most undesirable circumstances. On this occasion A. Gabiani writes: "Hardly had they banished the opium poppy, when the niche was quickly filled by common poppy. When the entire hemp-growing regions were cut off from black markets, the pharmaceutics flooded the market. The channels for natural drugs were blocked, then the far more dangerous chemicals began spreading.»

The specificity of drug abuse, and its forms and degree of proliferation, stress the need for a regular re-evaluation of its rapidly changing state in order to promote the methods of counteraction, discard the outlived methods, bring all techniques of exerting influence in line with the legislation and day-to-day reality. Experience proves that an objective assessment of any process demands for corrections to be made which take due notice of reality.

A system of measures to combat narcotics presupposes that its elements are mutually compatible and that the system itself can be a part of a higher order -(law enforcement and crime-prevention systems, and social administrative systems, as a whole). This means that not one subject or measure in the counter-narcotics system may contradict the values accepted by the society. The authority of the subjects must be sufficiently reflected in their rights and duties.

It is essential that all elements of the anti-narcotics system have enough potential possibilities to ensure its effective operation. The utmost goal of the organization is, in this case, to transform the potential possibilities into the real functions and make them serve as a system of counteraction measures. For example, the professional duty of medical institutions and doctors who provide treatment for drug addicts is manifested as a certain function performed by the elements of the system of counteraction to drug abuse.

A solution of the problems of drug abuse requires, on the one hand, considerable efforts by national, international and other organizations and their numerous divisions that act in different directions and focus on different target groups of people, and on the other hand, it requires coordination and accord in their activities.

The interaction of different elements of the system may be indirect, through the understanding of common objectives. This, however, requires a link in management. Such a link "is based on a certain program of action and is, in itself, a method of implementing this program. There is always a general structure of the process behind a developing operational system.»

General Provisions of Organizing Action Against Drug Abuse:

The above mentioned makes it possible to outline the following principles of an efficiently organized effort against drug abuse in the Russian Federation.

As the manifestations of drug abuse continue to grow and diversify, a real counteraction is possible only in the framework of a well-tested and scientifically based government policy which defines the forms, tasks and contents of the government's contribution to this effort. The understanding of drug abuse phenomenon should be reflected in the Concept of the government policy towards narcotics. Its principal goal is to secure legislative and organizational realization of anti-narcotics efforts, bring harmony and coordination into the activities of different ministries and departments, draw up a list of priorities and concentrate the available resources for their synchronized deployment. No other document but such a Concept can lay the solid foundation for the National Program of Counteraction against Narcotics. The Program necessarily requires an approval at the highest level by the President, the government and the parliament to make all of its provisions mandatory for everyone.

Реферат опубликован: 14/12/2009