On June 12-14, 2024, the 18th National Conference on the Problems of Drug Use Prevention was held in the city of Gabrovo. It was organised by the Secretariat of the National Drugs Council and the Municipal Drugs Council – Gabrovo, with the assistance of the National Center for Public Health and Analyses and the Regional Health Inspectorate – Gabrovo.
The forum was attended by nearly 100 experts in the field of drug prevention from all over the country.
The conference was opened by Ms Tanya Hristova, mayor of Gabrovo municipality, who gave congratulatory words and wished success to the participants. A congratulatory address was also read by the Minister of Health, Ms Galya Kondeva.
The main focus of the forum was current good practices in the field of drug use prevention, with which specialists from prevention and information centres (PICs) work. Such practices were presented by PIC Gabrovo (“Bridges of Goodness”) and PIC Ruse (“We will manage together”). The films “Purity or Death” for the Therapeutic Center “St. Ilia” – Gabrovo and “Invisible Victims” for the Therapeutic Community “Otvori Ochi” – Varna (with the support of Municipal Drugs Council Blagoevgrad) were also presented.
PIC Kardzhali presented the First National Conference with youth volunteers to the Municipal Drugs Councils on the topic: “I am young and choose life”, which was held in May 2024 in the city of Kardzhali.
Valentina Marinova from the National Center of Public Health and Analyses introduced the participants to the trends, guidelines and problems in the work of the prevention and information centres in 2023 based on the reports on the national programmes, the programmes for selective and indicated prevention, the realised campaigns and trainings in the field of drug use prevention.
Rositsa Racheva focused on some basic aspects of effective prevention programmes, while Aleksandar Panayotov summarized the results regarding the effectiveness of the tasks of the National Programme “Code Name Life” for school students in grades 5-7.
A special session was devoted to the changes that have occurred regarding the legalisation of cannabis use in Europe, the United States and Canada, paying attention to the consequences of the adopted legal regulations for the problem of drug use and drug addiction.
In the framework of the forum, introductory training was carried out for newly appointed experts on the topics of types of addictions and specifics of prevention programmes, regulations, effective prevention approaches when working with children and youth.
