The T-Drogues risk prevention campaign carried out by the Federation of Youth Centers of Catalonia and which uses fictitious public transport cards with instructions such as “clean your nose after each trip” in addition to distributing “turulos” to snort is “more than correct” for addiction experts. Although they recognize that it can scandalize the general population, they defend that aimed at consumers they are effective in reducing risks and creating a bond. However, they consider that there would have been no need for a warning message about the dangers of drug use.
“It is a campaign that has been carried out for years and is more than correct,” Otger Amatller, a psychologist specialized in prevention and care of problematic consumption and member of the Master of Drug Addiction at the University of Barcelona, ??explains to La Vanguardia. Amatller recognizes that such a campaign does not make sense in the general population and also understands that it is not understood or that it shocks, but he assures that it is effective in the consumer population. The expert points out “there is evidence” that these actions, which have been carried out for many years, work because they help and create links with people who at a given moment may ask for help, as Mireia Ventura, head of analysis at Energy, pointed out to this medium. control, organization that has advised the campaign. Despite this, Amatller acknowledges that it would not have been “too bad” to include a message that goes beyond the recommendation of reduction, such as “saying that consumption can cause problems.”
Since the campaign was launched on social networks and in the media, doctors and anonymous people have regretted the language used on the cards, which recommend “stinging well what you are going to drink” or changing nostrils. The epidemiologist at the Hospital Clínic Antoni Trilla pointed out that it was an unfortunate campaign. Amteller regrets the poorly informed opinions that have been given and that create “social alarm” and explains that the “too attractive” messages seek to reach the consumer population because with “institutional” information it is difficult to reach.
The psychologist remembers campaigns such as the mythical If you drink, don’t drive, which was also risk reduction because it had the intention of minimizing problems related to alcohol consumption: traffic accidents. And this is the same purpose of the T-Drogues campaign, he assures.
Also the psychiatrist Fernando Denmark, who works at the Addictive Behaviors Unit of the Sant Pau hospital in Barcelona, ??considers that it is a “correct” campaign although he understands that the message may shock or sound “strange” to the general population. He calls T-Drogues a “good initiative” and explains that risk reduction actions have these characteristics, but recognizes that “it is difficult for the general population to understand it.” He assures that there is evidence that these types of risk reduction campaigns work, but that what does not make sense is for them to be shown to the general population.
Both experts praise the work behind the Energy control entity. Its head of analysis, Mireia Ventura, has lamented that if the campaign is placed on channels “that it does not belong”, it may not be understood. The Health Department has also recalled that this is an initiative limited to a specific population, while Ventura details that the cards have not been distributed massively but rather at organized parties or through educators who have given them to people who are consuming. And she has defended in the program El Món a Rac1 that “it is necessary to destigmatize people who take drugs because 95% of consumers do not have addiction problems.”
On this topic, Otger Ametller assures that of the 100% of the population that consumes cocaine, only 25% are addicted. He recognizes that “the fear campaign comes from ignorance” but points out that “not all consumption has the same risks” and assures that they are not campaigns that incite consumption. For the expert, the usefulness of these campaigns is, in addition to promoting consumption that minimizes risks, that a link is created with professionals that makes it easier for the consumer to know where to go if they want to stop or ask for help. fetch”.
