A Professor in the Social Welfare and Addiction Department, of a Catholic University of Korea gives us the work done for those who are addicted to drugs of one kind or another.
Korea is a high stress society and the government has acknowledged the problems and is working in the area of crime and punishment but the mental health and rehabilitation centers are still few.
On July 20, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) began operating the Addiction Rehabilitation Center in Daejeon. Addiction rehabilitation centers provide counseling and rehabilitation programs to drug addicts and provide mandatory education that drug offenders must receive. There were two government-run addiction rehabilitation centers in Seoul and Busan, but the number increased to three with the opening of the Daejeon Center.
In particular, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced that it will operate the Daejeon area center 'customized for youth'. In a reality where the number of youth drug offenders is increasing recently, the opening Daejeon area center deserves positive evaluation.
Some adolescents have substance use problems severe enough to require therapeutic intervention. Therefore, since most adolescents can be seen as having the potential to have problems, intervention with preventive rather than therapeutic goals is more appropriate for adolescents. In addition, youth use of technology, tobacco, and drugs is highly likely to lead to substance use disorders in adulthood, and the earlier the age at which substance use begins, the more likely the problem will become. Therefore, it is important to prevent youth from engaging in alcohol, tobacco, and drug use. In addition, intervention for youth who already have problems the money spent and effectiveness have not been efficient.
Domestic education sites also recognize the importance of prevention and provide prevention education to students. According to the status of education on prevention of drug misuse and abuse, including narcotics, over the past three years, almost all elementary, middle, and high schools are providing education on prevention of drug abuse. Between 2019 and 2021, an average of 98-99% of schools provided prevention education to students.
However, even though almost all adolescents receive education to prevent drug misuse, adolescent use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs is increasing. According to the 2022 Youth Health Behavior Survey, youth's current e-cigarette use rate (proportion of people who used e-cigarettes on more than 1 day in the past 30 days) and current drinking rate increased compared to 2021. Also, according to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, the number of teenage drug offenders increased four-fold in five years from 119 in 2017 to 481 in 2022.
Even though the youth prevention education completion rate is close to 100%, the rate of alcohol, tobacco, and drug use is increasing, suggesting the need for diagnosis and improvement in prevention education.
The current drug abuse prevention education time is only 10 hours. School-based prevention education is known to be more effective when it consists of at least 15 sessions. In addition, current prevention education is biased toward using videos to inform people about the negative consequences of alcohol, tobacco, and drug use. This is a traditional prevention model, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of prevention education based on this model is very negative. In other words, overall improvements are needed in the operation period, operation method, and content of preventive education.
The Life Skills Training program is a representative youth drug misuse prevention program. The operation period of this program is 3 years, and it is a program operated in a manner based on the interaction between students and program facilitators (e.g. teachers), and several studies have proven its effectiveness.
The best place for these programs are the schools. We hope that schools will create an environment in which prevention education can be provided to students in an effective manner and for a sufficient period of time, and that the Ministry of Education and related organizations will actively invest in the development and evaluation of highly effective youth drug misuse prevention education programs.
