War on drug abuse by fall
While attending an event to mark International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking yesterday, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis pledged that by autumn, his government will have come up with a coordinated plan to combat drug abuse. «The new National Action Program against drugs will be ready by the fall, at the latest,» said Karamanlis. He added that the government was in the process of approving the construction of a center in Thessaloniki to provide drug substitutes to addicts and that agreements for the housing of new units of the state Organization Against Drugs (OKANA), which has 3,000 addicts on the waiting list to enter its rehabilitation programs, would soon be signed. «Apart from treating the symptoms, we also have to tackle the deeper roots of this phenomenon: the lack of prospects for our youngsters, unemployment, quality of life and the quality of education for our youth,» he said.
