A NEW programme was launched at the Central Prisons yesterday to help those addicted to drugs and dangerous substances.
The programme aims to help prisoners who were convicted of crimes related to drug use “become free of their addiction and learn to avoid becoming caught up in situations when they are vulnerable,” said Prison Governor Giorgos Tryfonides.
The Central Prisons are free of drugs, in theory.
However, in practice that is not the case because along with other items such as mobile phones, drugs somehow find a way into the premises.
For years authorities have been told that prison was no place for drug addicts given the ease at which drugs were available inside, coupled with the lack of facilities to treat addicts. The consensus was that some people were going into prison clean and actually coming out drug addicts.
To avoid mistakes in the new programme, a central clause is that “only those prisoners who test negative in drugs test will be eligible to voluntarily participate in the programme and then only after the team in charge decides they are suitable candidates,” said Tryfonides.
The team implementing the programme is independent of the Central Prisons and includes psychologists and experts capable of dealing with addictive behaviours.
Those prisoners participating in the scheme will receive help and treatment three times a week between 8am and 2.30pm.
The programme will be hosted in a separate building within the premises which the prisons authorities have helped to equip.
“We will be there to help, protect and ensure the safety of all those involved,” Tryfonides said. “We feel very proud that the programme was introduced in our premises.”
The anti-drug initiative is part of the government’s National Drugs Strategy and is a joint collaboration between the Health Ministry, Justice Ministry, the Cyprus Anti-Drugs Council, Mental Health services and the Central Prisons’ management.
“Addiction to alcohol or other drugs is a chronically relapsing medical disease that cannot be cured but can be managed,” said the non-profit Treatment Research Institute.
“Using and trafficking addictive substances is one of the biggest problems which humanity faces. No country is unaffected by this plague, including our very own Cyprus,” President Demetris Christofias said during the government’s launch of the National Drugs Strategy for the years 2009 and 2012.
