An Annual Meeting of experts was held on 24 and 25 September 2007 at the head offices of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) in Lisbon, under the Treatment Demand Indicator. Experts from 30 countries participated in the meeting included in the monitoring system on drug addiction problems. Bulgaria was represented by Momchil Vassilev (Director of the National Focal Point on Drugs and Drug Addictions) and Alexander Panayotov (International Cooperation Expert at the NFP).
The programme of the meeting was divided into several modules – development review of the ‘Search for treatment’ indicator; supplementing and improving current projects; evaluation of results from studies carried out; geographical analysis of data from European countries included in the search for treatment system. In addition, 3 parallel work groups were formed for discussions on: the use of a basic problem substance, second used substance and poly-use in the collection of data related to the search for treatment; the classification of drugs and inclusion of new toxic substances in the collection of data; clarification of the definitions for frequency and ways of using narcotic substances and the period of data collection in the search for treatment.
Marked at the end were the next steps of development of the search for treatment system and the first contacts for cooperation started with respect of future events and activities within the framework of this indicator.
