11 April 2008

BEIRUT: Drug prevention efforts in Lebanese schools received an added boost this week, with Oum el-Nour and Mentor Arabia, two large drug-use prevention associations, teaming up for a two-day seminar beginning on Thursday at the Holiday Inn-Dunes, in Verdun.

The seminar - held in cooperation with Caritas Lebanon and Caritas Luxembourg, under the patronage of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Affairs - hopes to raise the awareness of school principals and makers of educational policy regarding the importance of preventing drug abuse at a young age, and includes presentations and lectures by several experts and specialists from Lebanon and elsewhere.

"This seminar is driven by Mentor Arabia's mission to ensure the health and well-being of youth in the Arab world," said Mentor Arabia executive director Ramzi Naaman.

He added that links between students, parents and those able to enact change are vital to efforts to combat drug abuse in a sustainable manner.

Oum el-Nour general manager Mouna Yazigi said "drug addiction is a state of physical, financial, psychological and legal decline ... It is [getting worse] in our society - hence the importance of prevention."

"We believe that school is one of the essential pillars for the development of good health, smart education and wholesome growth. That is why drug prevention programs must be integrated into the school setting," added Yazigi.

Studies have shown that "Early Childhood Education  programs" are effective in reducing drug abuse and incidents of deviant behavior, Yazigi said.

The Lebanese initiative is one of three pilot programs being run by Mentor Arabia in the Middle East with the others in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Statistics available on Oum el Nour's Web site indicate that the percentage of patients at its rehabilitation center under the age of 24 has risen from less than 10 percent in 1993 to around 50 percent in 2006.

The statistics also show that the onset of more than half of all Lebanese addictions occurs between the ages of fourteen and nineteen, making drug prevention at younger ages crucial to any wider drug abuse reduction efforts.

Lebanon has long been a hub for the cultivation and transportation of illicit drugs, particularly cannabis and opium poppy seeds, but records regarding drug abuse in Lebanon remain relatively unreliable.

Although the use of cannabis is widely reported, there have also been studies that indicate a growing trend toward cocaine or heroine usage.

More than half of reported cases of drug abuse in Lebanon occur in the Greater Beirut area, with 85 percent of cases in the country being accounted for if Jbeil, Keserwan, and the Metn are added.  Since these areas also some of the most densely educated - in terms of schools in relation to population - schools provide an ideal starting point for educating those at risk.

For more information, visit www.oum-el-nour.org and www.mentorarabia.org.

Copyright The Daily Star 2008.