:::

Engage Indigenous Partners for Drug Abuse Prevention

  • Data Source:Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare
  • Created:2022-05-31
  • Last Updated:2022-05-31

According to the results of the "national survey on substance use " by the Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) done once every four years, the lifelong prevalence rate of drug abuse in 2018 was 1.15% (aged 12-64 years). Thus, there was about 204 thousand people had used illegal drug. TFDA has been over the years disseminating drug abuse prevention information in various communities, workplaces and enterprises. In recent years, more active cooperation has been enforced to engage indigenous people in resource-lacking, remote and rural areas.

  In order to raise drug abuse prevention capability of indigenous people, TFDA entrusted Tzu Chi University with the Community Personnel Training Project on Drug Abuse Prevention. Course subjects included drug abuse prevention, how to recognize illegal drug, how to refuse use of drug and community teaching skills, also practical experiences shared. A total of 108 people has been trained in 2021, among them 10 have been invited to hold health education activities within their own tribes with the advantage of same cultural background and interpersonal familiarity, more local people were engaged and 716 indigenous people obtained benefit. Thus, local people have joined together to protect the health of their home villagers.

To prevent the use of camouflaged drug that looked like jello, coffee pact, tea bag and candy out of curiosity, TFDA trained local seed teachers to help indigenous tribe people to recognize new psychoactive substances (NPS) as well as how to refuse using them, to be more alert, and to notice the suspicious signs of drug abuse, thus reduce the risk of exposing to drug. More information on drug abuse prevention and drug harm can be found at TFDA antidrug resources web page (http://www.fda.gov.tw/TC/site.aspx?sid=10070&r= 1203548564).