Alexander Mikhailov
Questions
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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?
If you instill a person (which is actually being done today) that he is terminally ill and that he has no chances to return back to the society, it becomes less possible for him to recover. Several years ago there was a ban on any mentioning of possible recovery. Like, "you cannot talk about it, because young people will think that if they shoot up a few times now, later they can easely recover!" Today we understand that such theory - is a dead end for the recovery. Every person must have a hope. Diabetes is incurable, but do we reject ill people? Every person has cancer cells - but do we ever distroy the hopes of cancer patients? Or people with epilepsy? It is necessary to radically reconsider such theories. And the only aid can be - the efforts of the society and the state to bring those people back to the society.
I know many people who have been through the drug hell. Today they are regular citizens of our country. One of them told me (now he works in a very large business sphere): "I still remember the thrill that drugs used to give me. But I also remember the horror of the consequences: shakes, rejection of my close ones, stinking smells of cellars and vomit ... And for me it was the edge that I will never ever overstep!" Drug addiction can be conquered within a person himself, only if there is a sense of relevance, usefulness to other people, their loved ones, a sense of assurance of personal realization. Alas, today we have not decided when to return to the person his driver's license, when it is possible for him to get back to his previous job, having some health restrictions. Without motivation and with no light at the end of the tunnel, all the efforts will be futile.
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In you opinion how important is parental education and relationships within the family in preventing drug addiction?
The key role! The wisemen say that you should educate a child, as he lies across the benches. When he lies along, it will be too late. Today, very often, we start education when the child's mind is poisoned, and with psychical disorders. But to be honest, sometimes young parents need to be educated ... The point you have stated is true: the stronger the family, the more attention (real, not in the form of overprotection) the child receives, there are more chances to make him a harmoniously developed and physically healthy real man.
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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?
The Internet age is an age of enormous new challenges. Today a significant number of people in the world is depended from it literally. Moreover, the problem of drug crime is actively moving to the Internet sphere. At the international conference "HONLEA" in Vietnam, the Interpol representative said with concern that, with the help of the Internet a huge deal of drug trafficking takes place, and that it is practically impossible for the intelligence agencies to track and respond to them, to stop the criminals; the Internet has become the trading platform for drug trafficking. In Russia, we see how the Internet is actively used to promote new types of drugs, to exchange the methods of manufacturing this poison, to promote the freaky lifestyle. There for, the informational struggle should be carried out, I beg your pardon for the tautology, by the informational means. It is vital to create a softwear, that would track the web sites, which propogate drugs, identify their owners and use all measures considered by the law to fight them. This stuggle will last for years, since we are just entering the age of the World Wide Web, we cannot forsee all the dangers it might pose. So far, drug trafficking is taking the advantage. And it has more creativity than governmental agencies. This is understandable - they have no rules and laws, as for the state, it tries to solve the problem in the frameworks of law. And there are problems with creativity as well ... This means that we must look for other ways to develop immunity against youth dependencies of such kind. Russians have a good proverb, "one fire drives out another fire". This means that we must create the conditions for the development of other dependencies – such as harmonious development of personality, healthy ambitions, positive alternative interests in culture, science, technology, sports. This is one of the hardest problem for today. That is why it is necessary to use the means of communication, including the Internet. Fight fire – with fire! To work with the drug addicted people, first of all, we must pull them out from the twilight state. But working with them must not be like "bombing the squares" using the same standard for all, it must be strictly individual. But then again, we come up against the same problem as Vladimir Vysotsky stated: "There are very few of the real impetuous, that is why there are no leaders." Who is going to do all these?
