On March 10, 2021, The UNODC Civil Society Unit (CSU) together with the Vienna NGO Committee on Drugs (VNGOC)  hosted a webinar for civil society on the International Standards on Drug Use Prevention.  

In case you missed it we recorded the webinar and you can find the presentations below.

Mirella Dummar Frahi from the UNODC CSU and Jamie Bridge from the VNGOC opened the webinar that gathered more than 350 participants. An interactive presentation by UNODC expert Giovanna Campello on the International Standards on Drug Use Prevention followed. She particularly emphasized the importance of early and development focused prevention, the applicability of the International Standards to different strategies, and the fact that evidence-based prevention should cover as many different settings as possible. 

Moreover, the two civil society panelists, Dayana Vincent from Fourth Wave Foundation India and Eric Siervo from CADCA USA, provided valuable insights on the civil society perspective on drug use prevention. Dayana’s presentation discussed current issues around remote schooling and online education making way for misinformation, targeted marketing and increased access to drugs for children on social media. She demonstrated how an evidence-based prevention programme could tackle these issues in Kerala, India. Eric introduced the concept of Community-Based Multi-Component Initiatives to strengthen the capacity of community coalitions to create and maintain safe, healthy and drug-free communities globally.  

In the open discussion and Q&A session moderated by Jamie Bridge participants addressed questions to the speakers on a diverse range of issues regarding the gender dimension of drug use, the effectiveness of prevention strategies in extreme contexts such as famine and health crises, as well as the applicability of the International Standards on Drug Use Prevention in African developing countries.