Topic: 2024-Substance Abuse
Country: Greece
Delegate Name: Rafay Dar
World Health Organization
Topic: 2024 Substance Abuse
Country:Greece
Delegate name:Rafay Dar
School: Forest Hills Central High School
According to John Hopkins medicine, Substance use is a recognized disorder in which someone repeatedly uses substances under circumstances that may impact their life negatively. This topic has been a bigger problem globally in more recent years, as the rate of substance abuse has been steadily increasing in the past decade. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, drug use has increased by 20% over the past decade. In 2022, there were over 292 million people worldwide who were known to use drugs, showing that this somewhat large fraction of the global population is involved. This topic is very important and controversial to address as with drug use, comes drug abuse; drug abuse is a serious problem as it could impact one’s mental and physical health poorly while still being against the law most of the time. In Greece, a survey was conducted in 2006 to determine the statistics of drug abuse within the population of people aged 15-64. In the report, it was found that almost 20% of responders admitted to using illicit drugs at some point in their lives.
In 2017, UNODC executive director stated that the lack of education for substance abusers in how serious the issue of drug addiction and use can be for them was severe, and substance abuse could potentially be lower should the education about the risks associated was more widespread. There have been many acknowledgements within the United Nations about how widespread this problem is and what should be done to address it, but so far there have been no true definite solutions implemented. In 2009, the Political Declaration and Plan of Action on International Cooperation Towards an Integrated and Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem, which was a list of problems associated with substance abuse and which goals the world should have about fixing these problems. There are a lot of nonprofit organizations trying to spread awareness about the substance abuse problem, and one of the most significant NGOS in Greece is called KETHEA, which is a nonprofit organization with its goal being to attempt to rehabilitate and provide support to former substance abusers.
In Greece, substance abuse often led to an increased rate in poverty, as there has been a 25% increase of homelessness in the country and a large fraction of this is to blame on substance abuse. There has also been an increase in remedies and organizations in order to deal with substance abuse, such as a more readily available supply of naloxone, which is a medication helped to deal with opioid overdoses. The Greek government has mostly been following a uniform plan within the European Union in order to deal with substance abuse by both lowering the supply and demand for illicit substances that may lead to drug abuse. Greece would definitely adopt policies in which drug supply is more regulated as substance abuse often comes from chaos on disorganization within the market.
Greece would encourage the UN to increase the amount of government funding from all countries into drug research and also stronger government backing for non profit organizations that remedy the problem of substance abuse. OKANA and KETHEA are prominent examples of these ngos, however only 1 in 5 substance abusers receive the proper care that they require. If a significant portion of member states were to create or support a joint organization that encompassed all aspects of this problem, primarily the regulation of illicit substances and opioids, then the amount of substance abuse across the globe will become minimal.
Sources: (not in any particular order)
https://www.euda.europa.eu/node/2621_et#:~:text=Results%20showed%20that%2019.4%20%25%20of,reported%20by%2019.3%20%25%20of%20respondents.
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/wdr2024-drug-market-trends.html
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/substance-abuse-chemical-dependency
https://www.un.org/en/observances/end-drug-abuse-day/background#:~:text=At%20the%20CND%20in%20March,and%20peace%2C%20with%20security%20and
https://www.kethea.gr/en/kethea/einai-kethea/#:~:text=KETHEA%20is%20the%20largest%20rehabilitation,was%20set%20up%20in%201983.
https://www.feantsa.org/download/greece-20172928673074328238317.pdf
https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/fighting-the-opioid-crisis–the-case-of-athens–greece
