The consumption of cocaine and heroin by youth is decreasing, but that of cannabis and other products is on the rise. On average, 12-14 years elapse between the initial use of substances and requests for help from social services. And the sale of drugs via the Internet is also on the rise.
31.5% of students aged 15-19 declare they have tried cannabis at least once and 2.7% smoke it daily. Males first try cannabis at age 16 (20%), while 4.7% of students aged 15-19 have tried stimulants at least once and a similar percentage have tried hallucinogens, but only 0.5% make use of them daily.
Pontecorvo, a small municipality in the province of Frosinone, presents a high rate of drug abuse amongst its youth, who live amongst suburbs and urban deterioration and a complete lack of projects dedicated to this age group. This is where the experimental
Taglia corto con la droga (Give Drugs a Cut) Project was conceived.
The project entails various phases: labs, meetings with experts, research activities and documentation as well as the production of short videos on the issue of drugs. Nine classes are involved in the project.
"Una mano per smettere" (A Hand to Quit) is the
campaign video produced by the students.
In the audio track, Project Director Pietro Noce, explains the choice of Media Education to develop “prevention activities against drug abuse, youth problems, emargination and deviance” dedicated to the children of the secondary school.
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