Director General/Executive Director
New York, 19 April 2016
Your Majesty,
Mr. President,
Excellencies,
Distinguished participants,
Allow me to begin by thanking your Majesty for your long-standing support for UNODC, and for your dedication and commitment to preventing drug abuse.
Your tireless efforts on behalf of vulnerable children everywhere represent a vital contribution to global efforts to address the challenges of illicit drugs.
And now the world has gathered here for the UNGA special session to focus on drug control responses.
This high level side event is a much-needed reminder that when it comes to drug use, prevention is far better than cure.
This is an important message, also in light of the fact that prevention of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse, is a key target under the Sustainable Development Goals.
However, far too often, prevention is stranded at the margins of the health-centred response to drugs, with too little in the way of resources, coverage and quality.
Despite good intentions, drug prevention efforts too often consist of isolated initiatives to raise awareness about the danger of drugs among young people and the general public. And only a minority of drug prevention strategies are ever evaluated.
All of this has contributed to a false perception that drug prevention doesn't really work.
That is why UNODC, working with our partners WHO, NIDA and more than eighty Member States, sorted through all of the available scientific literature assessing interventions, and whether and how they prevented drug use and other risky behaviours.
Based on this analysis, we published the International Standards on Drug Use Prevention, which also informs our practical work in this area.
Member States have welcomed the Prevention Standards on several occasions, and UNODC has started dialogues with more than sixty countries on how to improve national systems on the basis of the Standards.
In more than twenty countries, we have been able to successfully pilot evidence-based prevention programmes with parents and teachers.
But we need to do more.
The campaign that we are launching today, "Listen FIRST", seeks to build on these successes and raise awareness of the fact that drug use prevention based on science is an effective investment in the wellbeing of our children and youth, families and communities.
At the core of science-based prevention is a very simple concept, something we all know how to do but perhaps spend too little time doing.
I am talking about listening.
With "Listen FIRST", we are not telling children and young people what to do. We are calling the adults to action.
It is only by paying attention to children and young people, to their needs and frustrations and aspirations, that policy makers, parents, teachers and prevention workers can develop effective responses;
And in this way help the next generation build resilience, stay healthy, be empowered and prevent drug abuse in line with SDG three.
We have many distinguished speakers with us today to tell us more about how this can work in practice.
Over the next months, UNODC will also be reaching out through social media to share ideas and resources, and most importantly, to listen to what people have to say.
Together we can help ensure that science-based prevention works for all our communities.
I look forward to our discussion. Thank you.