ReageraMera

Honourable ministers, Mrs Dahl, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen, participants of this important conference.

It's truly an honour for me to welcome you all to Stockholm - The capital of Scandinavia. A city on water. Stockholm is built on 14 islands connected by 57 bridges.57 sounds a lot, but I can assure you that we need to build more bridges and tunnels to get the growing city to work. In the archipelago we are surrounded by another 23 000 islands.

As the mayor of Stockholm it is a great honour for me to welcome you to my city, and I am proud that the 1^st World Forum Against Drugs takes place in Stockholm.

We are going to talk about the serious problems connected to drug abuse across the national borders. Drug abuse is also a serious problem in Stockholm even if our problems are much less severe compared to many other cities. For example, in Stockholm about 10 percent of young people have tested narcotics. It is too many, but in another Nordic capital the number is 25-30 percent. In other parts of Europe there are cities where about 50 percent of young people have tested drugs

In order to protect young people, drug prevention is an area with high priority in Stockholm. The availability of various drugs has increased as well as the experimental use of different drugs. Adolescents and young adults are much more exposed and vulnerable to various drugs as a result of growing globalization and access to the Internet.

The Social Services in Stockholm have recently granted money to develop field work on the Internet, where young people, who are exposed to risk and receptive to substance abuse, are surveyed on the net.

In this way the Social Services in Stockholm are increasing their knowledge about where young people make contacts on the internet and can deal with problems that occur much earlier.  It will also be possible for children and youths to ask questions about mental health and drug addiction and get answers on the net.

The City of Stockholm has an alcohol and drugs policy statement  - Stockholm Tobacco, Alcohol and Narcotics Programme - the STAN programme. The purpose of the STAN programme is to help to make the City of Stockholm a good place to live and work in. The City of Stockholm is to be a place where children and young people can grow up in a good, health-promoting environment. In order to succeed with this, there must be wide consensus and collective responsibility among the various parties concerned in the City. And I am happy to say that we have a big consensus on these issues. It is very much due to the hard work from the many non-governmental organisations behind this conference.

The STAN programme consists of a comprehensive framework for joint development, stating the principles, goals and priorities which apply within the City as a whole concerning tobacco, alcohol and narcotics. The programme applies to all of the City's boards and companies.

The STAN programme takes its ethical starting point in the intentions of the Social Services Act and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which stipulate the basic rights of children and young people to protection and support. The programme is based on national goals and current legislation. The aims and objectives of the programme are based on current research and on knowledge built in the City on what kind of prevention work has the best possible positive effect, and on what is known so far to give the best conditions for care and treatment.

The STAN programme has three main components: 1. Preventive measures, 2. Early measures and 3. Care and treatment. These three parts complement each other.

The City of Stockholm's long-term goals concerning tobacco, alcohol and narcotics are among others:

- Childhood and adolescence must be free from tobacco, alcohol and narcotics.

- A narcotics-free Stockholm.

- The residents of Stockholm who abuse alcohol or other drugs shall be offered help in order to stop their abuse.

The long-term goals are made concrete in the following measurable intermediate goals:

- To postpone the age of the first alcohol intoxication.

- To reduce the number of children and young people who use tobacco.

- To reduce the number of children and young people who at some point try using narcotics.

- To reduce intoxication drinking by both adults and young people.

- To reduce the recruitment of new abusers.

- To induce more abusers to stop their substance abuse.

- To reduce the injurious medical and social effects of alcohol and narcotics.

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One of the prioritised aims is that every other year, the Social Services Committee shall conduct regular inventories of school pupils' drug habits and risk- and protection factors related to drug use. The inventories willbe done in the ninth year of the compulsory school and in the second year of the upper secondary school.

The latest inventory showed - I am sorry to say - that substance abuse has increased. More of the young people in Stockholm use drugs. I am also sorry to say that more young women use drugs, drink more alcohol and smoke tobacco, and the gap between women and men is closing in this area.

The first part in the STAN strategy is preventive measures. This means measures that can be taken before risk behaviour or injury has occurred. As a part of this broad strategy, the Social Services Administration of Stockholm has initiated the Prevention Center of Stockholm, Precens, which is a resource center for primary prevention of alcohol, drugs and crime.

The City of Stockholm is divided into 14 city districts, and Precens's main task is to support professionals to improve their preventive and promotional local work against alcohol, drugs and crime.

Parents and family are the primary and most important arenas for prevention work. I myself have two teenagers at home and I know how important my role as a parent is when it comes to giving my children the right values - and not least important - learn my children to say the little but important word: no.

Therefore it is crucial to get parents involved in prevention work. To a great extent this can be done through the schools, but media measures and various types of parental training programmes are also important. In the budget 2009 the Social Division will be given more resources for this purpose.

The second part in the STAN programme is early measures. This means measures aimed at identifying and supporting persons in risk situations and/or persons displaying risk behaviour as early as possible.

The third part is Care and treatment - measures aimed at a manifested problem or injury at the level of the individual.

Few of the most serious substance abusers are completely unknown to the care services of the community. This I think says something about the relatively small number of heavy substance abusers we have in Stockholm, which is a good sign that indicates that the problem is not too serious compared with other cities. For this group of heavy abusers it is important to build up professional networks in order to give long-term support to the most vulnerable and to those who are hardest to motivate.

By taking the initiative of forming "European cities against drugs" (ECAD), the City of Stockholm is participating actively in international narcotics politics. ECAD aims to unite major cities in a joint fight to stop the legalisation of narcotics. Stockholm is and will continue to be a strong voice in the fight against the use and legalisation of narcotics, ECAD is also one of the partners behind this important world conference, which I am happy to welcome here today to Stockholm.

Thank you.