Continuous improvement in response in anti-drug fight needed

BELGRADE -Psychoactive substance abuse is a major social problem in Serbia, so the state needs to work continuously on improving the response in the fight against that plague, reads a message from the closing conference of the EU twinning project titled “Implementation of Strategy for Fight against Drugs - Supply and Demand Reduction Components”.

Concerning the fight against drugs, participants of the conference, held on the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, underlined that the state needs to form a permanent coordination body that should work on reducing the supply and demand of narcotics on a daily basis.

According to the results of a survey by Serbia's Public Health Institute “Dr Milan Jovanovic Batut”, carried out on 5,000 respondents in the last two years, eight percent of the population aged 18-64 took a drug at least once, mostly cannabis - the largest number of them being in the 18-34 age group (12.8 percent).

The poll shows that ecstasy is also often used in Serbia, as well as amphetamines, cocaine, but also tobacco and alcohol.

More precisely, 64.5 percent of the population smoked tobacco, while around 72.2 percent of adults, or 82.1 percent of men and 62.4 percent of women, consumed alcoholic beverages in the last year.

Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said that combating drug dealers and keeping them away from schoolyards remain his priority.

“Every child and every family must be protected, and that is our task,” Stefanovic said.

Teams have already been set up that will be tasked with examining the assets of drug dealers, their contacts and accomplices, but also ties with the police, Stefanovic said, stressing that “no one...