Home secretary Jacqui Smith has applauded Rotary clubs in Wolverhampton for their joint drug awareness efforts.
At a recent launch in Jenny Lee Centre, Wednesfield, also attended by The Mayor of Wolverhampton, Councillor Christine Mills,MPs Ken Purchase and Rob Marris and an invited audience of over150, the Home Secretary said the combined clubs new Drug AwarenessCard was to be highly commended.
The five Rotary Clubs of Wolverhampton, working with the city’s Young People’s Substance Services, put together the card to empower parents to talk to their children about the potential dangers of illegal substances.
The clubs realised that while many parents were aware of the unfortunate effects of drug use, they often had little knowledge ofthe tell tale signs.
The new card, made available in the Wolverhampton area, tells parents what they should look out for if their child was displaying unnatural behaviour so that drug use can be tackled. This then helps young people achieve their full potential.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "This Government has introduced tough new laws to tackle drug use while informing young people of the dangers of illegal substances through the FRANK drug awareness campaign. Our new Drug Strategy recognises the vital role that parents can play. But parents can, and indeed want, to play a role too.
"While drug use is at an 11 year low and drug use among young people has fallen in recent years, we can never be complacent about the threat of illegal substances.
"This card will help inform parents of what they can do to spot the tell tale signs of drug use while providing useful contact numbers for local support services.
"To see Rotarians working with local support services is hugely encouraging, and I hope others will follow their inspiring example."
Peter Barke, Rotary District Governor 1210 said: "We all know the problems that addictions can cause. The production of this Drug Awareness Card is part of Rotary’s commitment to improve awareness in the Community.
"We were delighted that our partners readily agreed to provide legal and technical advice to enable the card to be produced, together with valuable support from the Local Education Authority and Primary Care Trust.
"We are particularly grateful to the James BeattieCharitable Trust who agreed to fund the project in the same way as they did 11 years ago when we did a similar exercise. "It is important to note that neither we nor any of our partners are saying that every child at school in Wolverhampton has a problem with addictive substances. This venture is simply to put parents ina position to recognise abnormal behaviour in their child if it happens."
40,000 cards have so far been produced and will be issued to the parents of every child at every primary and secondary School in Wolverhampton by the end of term.
On average, 47 drug users per month are being taken into treatment through the government’s Drug Interventions Programme to help tackle acquisitive crime, which is largely drug related. In all, acquisitive crime has fallen by a fifth since this programme was launched five years ago.
22/07/08
