ABG faces drug problems

DRUG abuse has been a big problem in Bougainville, a doctor said.
Dr Joe Vilosi said in the last two months, there have been two deaths related to marijuana abuse.
He made this known at the start of a four-day drugs awareness workshop in Hutjena.
The workshop began yesterday, with many people from various sectors of the community attending.
ABG vice-president Ezekiel Masat said there was a great need for drugs awareness to be held because today it was a very big problem in Bougainville.
“We need to set a foundation today for the upcoming leaders of tomorrow,” Mr Masat said.
He said it was the responsibility of the ABG government, churches, youths and everybody in the region to take a stand and stop ignoring this problem.
“We must attack this problem from the community level for us to succeed in this fight,” Mr Massat said.
He  said  a total of K2,000 was given to each constituency to carry out drug awareness programmes.
Main speaker Dete Siegit, who was attached to HORIZONT3000, said the development of the workshop was in response to the very worrying situation in Bougainville regarding drug production, drug trafficking and drug consumption.
The objectives of the workshop were; enabling community prevention sessions in communities, starting a community finding process for a strategy to respond to drug production, trading and consumption and supporting and instructing other community key persons for further drug prevention.