As Drug Abuse Gains Ground and Weakens Young Generations, the Country Calls for National Mobilization
The state, driving this approach, coordinates prevention, awareness, and support, while the school, family, and society as a whole become the first lines of defense against this scourge.
According to La Presse, the Director General of Public Security, Issam Fitouri, announced on Saturday, October 4, that a citizen program to combat drugs, combining repressive response and prevention, is currently being developed. This program includes strengthening awareness in schools, considered a major lever in the fight.
Speaking during the National Day of Awareness for Drug Prevention, organized by the Ministry of Interior at the City of Culture, Fitouri indicated that the ministry is also working on developing an implementation plan for the national strategy to reduce social violence, integrating a renewed approach to the rise in drug consumption.
The official emphasized that schools and their educational staff play a central role in early detection of drug use cases among students. Teachers, supervisors, and educational staff often have to sound the alarm in the absence of sufficient family vigilance.
Prevention, Intervention, Care, and Reintegration
Colonel Fakhreddine Khedri highlighted the close link between violence and drug consumption, justifying the focus on the school environment, considered the "largest reservoir of society." He described an integrated action plan, designed as a comprehensive response to a complex phenomenon.
This plan is based on prevention and information to raise awareness among young people and break taboos around consumption. It relies on the intervention of law enforcement and customs services, responsible for repressive response and control of supply networks.
In addition, medical care for consumers aims to treat addiction not as a simple offense, but as a human and health reality requiring specialized support. Finally, social reintegration, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Social Affairs, is the last link in this chain, aiming to give those seeking to escape the cycle a place and dignity, so that no journey ends in exclusion.
Beyond institutional action, the fight against drugs requires collective mobilization, where civil society and families must play a determining role. Local associations, cultural structures, sports clubs, or youth centers can become spaces for listening and prevention, capable of recreating lost bonds and offering concrete alternatives to idleness and despair.
Often, behind each case of consumption, there is loneliness, a dysfunctional family, precariousness, or social exclusion of the young person - or their family - and, consequently, a lack of benchmarks. Restoring confidence in these young people and trying to reintegrate them into various artistic, sports, or associative circles is already a step towards healing.
Training and Strengthening Educational Teams
From the Ministry of Education, psychologist Houda Helali emphasized the need to train educational teams to recognize the clinical and behavioral signs of drug consumption, in order to quickly direct concerned students towards adapted care. She recalled that school psychologists cover a wide range of situations, including addiction cases, but the lack of staff remains a major obstacle.
The first recruitments took place in 2015 and 2017, with an average of two psychologists per regional direction only. Today, the ministry plans to recruit 31 new psychologists, she specified, while again stressing that the fight against drugs in schools requires the mobilization of multiple actors.
National Mobilization Deployed in Several Regions
The national day was held simultaneously in Sousse, Tabarka, and Djerba, bringing together, according to the ministry, nearly 750 participants, including 650 from the national education sector. This large-scale mobilization illustrates the authorities' desire to integrate the fight against drugs into a collective dynamic, beyond the sole security framework.
The objective is to raise the level of alertness about the dangers of drugs and psychoactive substances, particularly in schools where young people are a vulnerable population. But it is also to strengthen the capacities of teachers, giving them the necessary tools to detect early signs of consumption and direct concerned students towards adapted care.
This day aims to tighten the links between the various field actors - schools, security structures, and health services - to build a coherent chain of prevention and intervention, capable of responding effectively and humanely to a phenomenon that now affects all layers of society.
In the face of increasing consumption, affecting increasingly varied environments and ages, drugs pose a real public health challenge. Medical and social structures are often overwhelmed, while families struggle to find listening and support. This is why, during this awareness and information day, officials are advocating for a multidimensional approach, combining care, education, and prevention, to put the person at the heart of the system.
However, beyond the numbers and strategies, drugs remain a scourge that worries and frightens. Addictions are hitting young generations hard, those on which Tunisia bases its hopes and builds its future. Each affected student, adolescent, or young adult represents a fragile promise, a potential in danger. The fight against drugs is not only a health or educational battle, but also a matter of national security, nothing less.
