The City of Vilnius last week sponsored a two-day international conference entitled "AIDS and Drug Use: Let's Unify our Response."
Published:
5 October 2000 y., Thursday
The event brought together experts from Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, the United States as well as hundreds of representatives from many levels of
Lithuanian society and government: police and health officials, educators,
student leaders and politicians.
The main auditorium at the Vilnius Congress Hall was standing room only
for the opening addresses on Sept. 19 - a testament to the importance of
these issues in Lithuania today. In most cases, the speeches themselves
addressed concrete means of attacking the drug problem.
Kornelijus Platelis, Lithuania's minister of education, spoke about the
effect of drug use on schools in the country. "Drugs are affecting mainly
our young people. Drugs are openly sold in schools and underage crime
is increasing," he said.
Platelis advocated increased policing of drug traffickers and dealers in
order to reduce supply as well as working more closely with countries
more experienced in fighting drugs such as the United States, Russia and
Sweden.
While Lithuania was only a hub for the transportation of narcotics just a few short years ago, it is now a nation of drug producers and users, according to Ceslovas Blazys, minister of the interior. Some 21 percent of Lithuania's school-age boys and 9.6 percent of school-age girls experimented with drugs at least once, according to a
survey conducted by the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute in 1999.
Šaltinis:
baltictimes.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
Colombian police arrested three people believed to be Marxist guerrilla sympathizers and seized explosives Wednesday.
more »
Al Gore's selection of Joseph Lieberman as his vice presidential running mate was warmly received by high-tech industry advocates.
more »
After regaining the independence in 1990, Lithuania faced the worldwide nightmare – AIDS. Now official figures of infected people are not so large; but they are frightening because in future number of AIDS and HIV infected can increase.
more »
Dying gangster Reggie Kray is to be freed from jail on compassionate grounds, Home Secretary Jack Straw ruled today.
more »
Australian authorities downplay conspiracy to blow up reactor.
more »
Hurricane Debby Churns Toward Puerto Rico.
more »
Despite all the fears and conspiracy theories, the conclusion is ``inescapable'' that an explosion of vapors in a fuel tank is what brought down TWA Flight 800 four years ago.
more »
The Orthodox church will on Sunday take the unprecedented step of canonizing someone already revered as a saint by Roman Catholics, amid ceremonies marking Hungary's millennium as a nation state.
more »
Russian military officials in Chechnya said today that Chechen guerrilla have offered $30,000 to kill the head of the pro-Moscow administration in one of Chechnya's main districts.
more »
Catholic Relic Arrives For Hungarian Anniversary Celebrations.
more »