World Anti-DrugTransnational Internet contest - "Maya"

Questions

• Doctors tend not to talk about "recovered drug addicts," and prefer the term "inactive addicts" those who dont use drugs right at given moment. In your opinion, is it not possible to get rid of this label? Even in the opinion of drug treatment experts, patients remain forever addicted. How can the modern society be taught to have an adequate attitude toward former drug addicts and consider them as a part of the society?

  To be honest I’m not really competent person in the field of drug addiction, but I guess that publishing stories about recovered drug addicts who were successful enough to put their lives together is a good method. That is how we can show the public that drug users are not lost individuals; they still can be a part of society.

• In you opinion how important is parental education and relationships within the family in preventing drug addiction?

  I have no doubt that parental education is crucial as long as it determines the future of the children and the decisions they take. My family has played a tremendously important role in what I have achieved throughout my life. Thank to the support of my mom and sister, it helped me to go forward. It was my father the one who showed me the way and attended all the competitions with me. Therefore, I think that parental education and family environment are extremely important.

• What should be in the Internet age and growth of online communities informational methods to combat drug addiction? What do you think, what means will be most effective today, and how the state should behave in order to successfully affect the suffering of drug addiction and to conduct prevention among healthy population?

  Well, I think that information should be offered in an appropriate manner in order to be easily digested by users of virtual communities. I actually have a very busy schedule and I cannot afford to spend much time on social networks or the Internet, I use e-mail only. For this reason I cannot propose any special measures to address this issue in social networks, but government will not be able to achieve much without being involved into this field. If governments don’t understand how to present information, all their efforts will be useless. That is why I think that the best way for government is to be involved into the virtual space. It’s time to realize that the world is changing and new spaces for action appear.