Venezuela: second country in the world with a public addiction treatment system

By colareboenglish
06/04/2011

Caracas, AVN .- Giving priority to an integral management of rehabilitation and social reinsertion of citizens affected by drug issues, Venezuela becomes the second country in the world (after Cuba) in creating a national public system to treat addictions, said the president of the National Anti-Drug Office (ONA in Spanish), Nestor Reverol, during a meeting among State institutions aimed at strengthening the system.

Venezuela “wants to standardize and unify the efforts done by diverse State institutions on this matter so as to create a single force regulating the activity of the system and work together for the rescuing of patients,” he explained.

“Venezuelan State has assumed the commitment and the legal responsibility of sharing with the Venezuelan family the suffering of knowing that a close relative has fallen into drugs and needs help to come back to light,” he pointed out.

Reverol recalled that Venezuela has always been hailed abroad for its fight against drugs, seizings and fight against international trafficking; now, the country is assuming the commitment on integral prevention and treatment, control of chemical substances and money laundering, which are the main issues allowing to deal with the root of the problem.

Rate of consumption prevalence

Currently, a study is being conducted through the National Addiction Treatment System on drug consumption aimed at defining consumption patterns in the country. Prevalence has been estimated in about 1.5 million citizens.

Reverol informed that it is a study conducted home by home in 55,000 households, that should be finished by August this year, aimed at clearly identifying the number of people consuming drugs and obtain an international pattern to establish the consumption level in the country.

So far, 41,000 households have already gone through the study.

Venezuela”s Health minister Eugenia Sader highlighted the creation of the system as a new achievement of the Bolivarian revolution.

“This is an including Government. The Bolivarian revolution tries to include the people that were excluded from the society, just because some addictions have affected them. This is perhaps the toughest fight that population could have, but we are facing it and giving the battle jointly,” the Minister pointed out.

The National Public Treatment System was created by presidential decree on May 18, 2011.