Drug Abuse Prevention Programs Continue Amid the Pandemic

As the 2019 novel corona virus (COVID-19) swiftly turned into a pandemic in March this year and community quarantine across the country was enforced, the government had to focus its attention and resources in slowing down the rate of infection and in mitigating the pandemic’s effect to the health and wellbeing of the citizenry and the economy. Many programs and activities including those in line with the anti-illegal drug campaign have met challenges in its implementation. Amid the health crisis however, agencies of the government remained steadfast in their commitment to protecting the people from the threat of drug abuse.

Using information technology and social media, the government led by the Dangerous Drugs Board continued to implement programs under the Philippine Anti-Illegal Drugs Strategy.

To ensure that policies and programs remain responsive and relevant to the current challenges, meetings of the Board have since been conducted online. The first virtual meeting was successfully conducted on 5 May 2020. To date, the Board has already approved four regulations and fourteen resolutions.

A regulation has been issued recently extending the validity of provisional accreditation of physicians for a period of two years. This was earlier requested by the Department of Health (DOH) in order to ensure that there will be adequate number of accredited doctors or physicians to conduct Drug Dependency Examination (DDE) on Persons Who Use Drugs (PWUDs) during the pandemic. Likewise, an infection prevention protocol had also been approved for the continuance of treatment, rehabilitation, and care services to PWUDs. The protocol covers residential Drug Abuse Treatment and Rehabilitation Centers (DATRCs), outpatient facilities, and community-based drug rehabilitation programs.

Meanwhile, operating units of the Dangerous Drugs Board have since been working to convert existing seminars and trainings into online-friendly modules to ensure that the government’s anti-drug advocacy can still be easily disseminated.

In May, the DDB launched a virtual program dubbed as “Fact Talk,” which featured a series of virtual discussions with different stakeholders, in line with the institutionalization of the PADS.

Webinars were also conducted which include the following among many others.

• Discouraging Drug Use in the Workplace, undertaken on July 3, 2020 trough Cisco Webex. The webinar was conducted in hopes to further the participants’ knowledge regarding the impact of drugs and substance use in the workplace.
• Webinar on the Impact of Drug Use to Mental Health conducted on July 17, 2020, giving the participants some insights to the link between substance use and mental health; emphasizing the ways to better address the comorbidities of drug use, which are considered to be treatable.
• The use of nutritional guide for Persons Who Use Drugs (PWUDs) was discussed in a webinar on the following week in line with the book launch of the Department of Science and Technology Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) dietary manuals for PWUDs. This webinar offered perspectives on how the dietary guide can contribute to reduce depression and severe psychological distress.

While the number of participants continues to increase from 90 to more than 300 since the beginning, the webinar series had proved to be enticing.  With such an acknowledgement, the DDB has more than enough motivation to adapt to the “New normal” as they continue to abide by their mandate address the illegal drug problem amid the pandemic.