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Category: News

Published: 19 December 2018

ECAD was one of the main presenters at Swedish Conference Drogfokus in October 2018. Drogfokus is a conference for government agencies responsible for treatment and prevention of drug use and abuse as well as the criminal justice system. Alcohol, tobacco, narcotic drugs and doping substances was the topic of the conference. ECADs Secretary General presented ECADS view from civil society on narcotic drugs for a 900 head audience.

The speech was recorded by Swedish media and can be viewed here.

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Category: News

Published: 10 December 2018

Early in October ECAD organized a study visit to SanPatrignano recovery community and used the opportunity to visit a workshop on viral hepatitis conducted at the same time.
The workshop took place in SanPatrignano and was accredited by the Italian Ministry of Health.

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Category: News

Published: 27 September 2018

ECAD is implementing a 12 month-long primary prevention project that started with a workshop in Eskilstuna this September. Project teams from 7 cities (Tallinn, Kaunas, Jurmala, Dobele, Eskilstuna, Minsk and Odessa) in the Baltic Sea region participated in the seminar, making use of the 20-year long research on reducing the substance use among the youth, named the Icelandic Model.

The seminar was focused on the evidence-based findings of the Icelandic model, brought to Eskilstuna and presented by the team of researchers from the Icelandic Center for Research and Analysis. The key-message of getting to grips with the specifics of efficient prevention is changing the context (environment) that forms the behaviour of people, since personal lifestyle is socially conditioned. The objective is to achieve a long-term cultural change.
To introduce the change it is vital to ensure an up-to-date mapping of the actual situation with substance use in the project cities. It can be achieved by introducing regular questionnaires among 14-15 old youth and understanding their physical and mental state. One of the success factors here is a committment of elected city officials to facilitate the continuity of data collection.

Project partners discussed the actual situation in the project cities and identified a number of challenges, depending on the size of the community and the well-being of its citizens. The most common challenges turned to be lack of regular interventions and local prevention programmes, the use of cannabis and synthetic substances among the youth and lack of gender-specific prevention.

The Icelandic model can provide adequate resoponse to these challenges. So two of the present city officials (Kaunas, Lithuania and Odessa, Ukraine) had decided on the introduction of Icelandic methodology and regular data collection after the seminar.

The participants expressed vivid interest in networking with each other and the contacts are now established on the regular basis among all of us. The next step will be visiting the communities, participating in the data collection in November and thus the project partners have to take the decision on how profound their involvement in the project will be.

We are also looking forward to the next meeting in Odessa in March 2019.

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Category: News

Published: 30 August 2018

During ECADs 25th Mayors Forum and the 6th World Forum Against Drugs in Gothenburg more than 60 speakers discussed topics related to the production, trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs to a 400 head large audience. One of our prominent speakers, Dr Vanda Felbab-Brown, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, presented her findings from international research on conflict areas, insurgencies, terrorism and organized crime to give an overview of the relationship between Organized Crime, Illicit Drugs and Terrorism.

Illicit drug production in weak states have enriched guerrillas, militias, organized crime groups, terrorist groups and corrupt governments alike. Violence, corruption and insecurity threaten the integrity and legitimacy of governments and their institutions.

Yet, it is not so easy as to equate tough drug control with increased levels of violence. The illicit drug trade is more violent in some parts of the world than others. What are the linkages between organized crime, drug trade and terrorism? What blame can be attributed to the so-called war on drugs and how should the vicious cycle of state fragility, conflict and weak rule of law be turned into a virtuous cycle of increased security and development?

What follows is a summary complied by ECAD Secretary General who moderated the event. Any mistakes in the text or discrepancies to what Vanda said shall be attributed to him.

Vandas speech can be viewed on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIE7E1KjnYc
A written compilation of Dr Felbab-Browns speech can be accessed here

Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her B.A. in Government from Harvard University, USA. Vanda Felbab-Brown is a Senior Fellow in the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy organization based in Washington, DC, as well as Director of the project 'Improving Global Drug Policy: Comparative Perspectives Beyond UNGASS 2016'. Vanda Felbab-Brown is an expert on international and internal conflicts and non-traditional security threats, including insurgency, organized crime, urban violence, and illicit economies as well as author to several books, policy reports, academic articles and opinion pieces.


Download the full commentary here