The City Council of Solsona will collaborate in the writing of the Antidrug Strategy Plan of el Sol del Solsonès (PLEAS) through the financing the two meetings of experts which are taken into account for its elaboration. It’s one of the agreements of the covenant that yesterday evening the mayor, Xavier Jounou and the president of the Asssociation of Mentally Ill people and people with Drug Dependence Sol del Solsonès, Enric Serra.
“Pioneering project in Catalunya”, according to what the coordinator doctor Antoni Fernández quotes, the PLEAS is planned as a tool for the prevention of drug dependence in the region of el Solsonès with a term of application of three to five years. The first goals, as the covenant states, are searching for political and legal measures which can influence the production and distribution of the drug; the concretion of the necessary actions and the timing of implementation in each environment; and the setting of indicators which be able to value the effectiveness of the performed actions.
This plan will be written by El Sol del Solsonès before the year’s end. Among others, the plan of the project elaboration forecasts two previous meetings with experts groups, one about politics and laws about drug addictions and another about sociology of drugs. And the idea of the plan starts from the premise “first it’s necessary to think globally and act locally”, Mr. Fernández quotes.
The idea, according to what its coordinator explains, is to define the goals that need to be set and the actions that will be necessary to achieve them. Although the project comes from the association of mentally ill people and drug addicts of el Solsonès, the responsible people ask the institutions and entities interested in this cause so that they join the project and they work transversely.
The mayor, Mr. Jounou, quoted the agreement of collaboration with el Sol del Solsonès of “special”, for both the promoting entity and the cause. “The City Council cannot do anything else apart from giving support to the goal of fighting against this cause”, and he assured “and work in such a way that people that are in risk of falling can get away and the people who has fallen can rehabilitate themselves”.
However, “until now this cause has received little strength in the scopes of security and governmental entities”, Mr. Serra, president of Sol del Solsonès, quoted. And to face this problem that “has destroyed many families”, according to Mr. Serra, “it’s necessary to have courage”. “The society must sensitize itself with facts”, he stressed.
The town councilor of Social Action and Citizenship, David Rodríguez, points out that this is a first step and he also invoked to the rest of institutions to join it: “we have to look for as much implication as possible”. “The single act that we can speak about drug is a success, the more we talk about it, the more conscious we will be of the problem and the more we contribute to fight against it”, he asserts. And “for the City Council it’s a very high priority to confront the drug because it means the degradation of the person, family and society in general, the councilor says.
Political and legal aspects
The first speech with experts will take place on the 15th of February at 16.30h in the cultural hall of the Town Hall with the title “Drogues i institucions”, the session will count on the participation of Jordi Satorra, territorial delegate of Youth of Lleida; Rosa Núria Aleixandre, senator responsible for the speech of the studys about the harmful effects of drugs in the health of the youth, and Marta Santaulària, lawyer.
This session will belong to the first phase of elaboration of the PLEAS, that,
as Antoni Fernández says, it will consist in “sit and listen”.
For that reason “we call together first line experts”, because
“the drug problem cannot be handled only locally”. In the second
phase it will be necessary “sit and talk” transversally with the
entities and institutions that want to join the project. The third step will
consist in “sit and write” the goals and the strategies which
let us achieve these goals. Finally it will be the moment to stand up and
act on a problem which is already becoming big in Solsona.”
A study on the drug intake in el Solsonès carried out by Creu Roja
that was awarded by the Rotary Club of Solsona revealed that in the city there
is a high intake of drugs and it starts more and more in earlier ages among
the youth- students of first and second courses of ESO. For this reason, “we
cannot base our prevention work only on actions of sensitization, but it’s
necessary also to press the institutions so that they act politically and
legally”, points out Antoni Fernández. If we work from Solsona
maintaining a link with the circle of experts, “the city will be leading
in the fight against drugs.”.
