Post by Fenlander on Jun 12, 2008 9:22:06 GMT 2
Alarming rise in drug abuse among Turkish teenagers
Recent data from the police and drug testing centers have revealed that drug abuse among Turkey's young people is growing at an alarming rate.
A firm indicator of this trend is the sharp rise in the number of families who apply to the Forensic Medicine Center of the German Hospital of Ýstanbul for drug screening of their teenagers, said Professor Fatih Yavuz, the director of the center.
Yavuz noted that a majority of the 1,000 people who visited the center last year regarding the drug tests were teenagers brought by parents who suspected they might be using drugs. "In the past, Turkey was merely a country along the world's drug trafficking routes. Now it has become a target market," said Yavuz. Þevki Sözen, president of the forensic medicine department of Ýstanbul University School of Medicine, also reported an increasing number of parents bringing their kids to the center for drug testing.
"Families should be most careful. They should make sure their children know that they are there for them. They should stand by their children. It is very important that the child can trust you," Sözen said.
Yavuz agreed with Sözen's statements, warning parents to show their children that they care. He said the youngest person to be brought in by parents to their center so far was 14. He noted that drug test results are an important initial step for getting rehabilitative treatment, adding that when the results do come out positive, parents will often check their children into a rehabilitation center. "After that point, it is basically about legal liability. Parents who refuse to take their children to rehab may face legal troubles."
Sözen said there is a checklist parents should go through before taking their child to a testing center. "First they have to closely monitor the behavior of the child. They should ask whether any modification in the behavior of the child is not a mere consequence of puberty. They should first seek the help of an expert, who could be of tremendous help in determining whether drug addiction is the real problem. If drug screening is called for, then the child has to be informed of that. Screening should be done after gaining the trust of the child," he explained.
Forms of testing
In the drug testing centers of health institutions, making the child aware of the process is a requirement. In other words, it is impossible for parents to secretly steal hair samples from the child. The amount of hair needed for screening, doctors explain, is much more than a person could furtively cut off from a child's head. Secondly, the consent of the person to be tested is required by law. Both the family and the child have to fill out a number of separate forms before a screening test can be performed. However, it is legal for a center to test a suspicious pill found in a teenager's possession.
Drug tests can be done by screening hair, blood or saliva samples, with hair samples usually giving the most conclusive results. Each 1.5-centimeter segment of hair can attest to whether a child has been using a certain kind of drug or not in the past month, which makes it possible to determine the duration of drug abuse, particularly in children with longer hair. Other screening tests can only detect drug use in the previous week. It usually takes a week for the results to be ready. Only selected personnel have access to test result information. Statistics from these centers show that ecstasy pills are the most commonly found narcotic substance among Turkish youths between the ages of 16 and 20, followed by marijuana.
According to police data, 115,060 juveniles were taken into custody for various offenses across the country in 2007. Of this group, 28,446 were regular smokers while 2,276 were "frequent" drug users. Furthermore, 38,000 of the juvenile delinquents were referred to the court last year, with 1,830 of those detained younger than 10 years of age.
Turkey as a new market for smugglers
Though once the last transit country along a 20-country route for heroin from Afghanistan before the narcotics were transported to Europe, data from the National Police Department show that Turkey has indeed become a target country. And this is in spite of all the efforts of Turkey's narcotics teams, which seize an annual amount of narcotics much higher than the combined 19 other countries along the route. In 2003, 3,546 kilograms of heroin were seized in narcotics operations in Turkey. That figure had risen to over 9,000 kilograms as of 2007, with hundreds of police raids. Also in 2007, the police seized 510 kilograms of opium, 29 kilograms of morphine base, 114 kilograms of cocaine, 13,439 kilograms of marijuana and 1,007,577 ecstasy pills.
Recent data from the police and drug testing centers have revealed that drug abuse among Turkey's young people is growing at an alarming rate.
A firm indicator of this trend is the sharp rise in the number of families who apply to the Forensic Medicine Center of the German Hospital of Ýstanbul for drug screening of their teenagers, said Professor Fatih Yavuz, the director of the center.
Yavuz noted that a majority of the 1,000 people who visited the center last year regarding the drug tests were teenagers brought by parents who suspected they might be using drugs. "In the past, Turkey was merely a country along the world's drug trafficking routes. Now it has become a target market," said Yavuz. Þevki Sözen, president of the forensic medicine department of Ýstanbul University School of Medicine, also reported an increasing number of parents bringing their kids to the center for drug testing.
"Families should be most careful. They should make sure their children know that they are there for them. They should stand by their children. It is very important that the child can trust you," Sözen said.
Yavuz agreed with Sözen's statements, warning parents to show their children that they care. He said the youngest person to be brought in by parents to their center so far was 14. He noted that drug test results are an important initial step for getting rehabilitative treatment, adding that when the results do come out positive, parents will often check their children into a rehabilitation center. "After that point, it is basically about legal liability. Parents who refuse to take their children to rehab may face legal troubles."
Sözen said there is a checklist parents should go through before taking their child to a testing center. "First they have to closely monitor the behavior of the child. They should ask whether any modification in the behavior of the child is not a mere consequence of puberty. They should first seek the help of an expert, who could be of tremendous help in determining whether drug addiction is the real problem. If drug screening is called for, then the child has to be informed of that. Screening should be done after gaining the trust of the child," he explained.
Forms of testing
In the drug testing centers of health institutions, making the child aware of the process is a requirement. In other words, it is impossible for parents to secretly steal hair samples from the child. The amount of hair needed for screening, doctors explain, is much more than a person could furtively cut off from a child's head. Secondly, the consent of the person to be tested is required by law. Both the family and the child have to fill out a number of separate forms before a screening test can be performed. However, it is legal for a center to test a suspicious pill found in a teenager's possession.
Drug tests can be done by screening hair, blood or saliva samples, with hair samples usually giving the most conclusive results. Each 1.5-centimeter segment of hair can attest to whether a child has been using a certain kind of drug or not in the past month, which makes it possible to determine the duration of drug abuse, particularly in children with longer hair. Other screening tests can only detect drug use in the previous week. It usually takes a week for the results to be ready. Only selected personnel have access to test result information. Statistics from these centers show that ecstasy pills are the most commonly found narcotic substance among Turkish youths between the ages of 16 and 20, followed by marijuana.
According to police data, 115,060 juveniles were taken into custody for various offenses across the country in 2007. Of this group, 28,446 were regular smokers while 2,276 were "frequent" drug users. Furthermore, 38,000 of the juvenile delinquents were referred to the court last year, with 1,830 of those detained younger than 10 years of age.
Turkey as a new market for smugglers
Though once the last transit country along a 20-country route for heroin from Afghanistan before the narcotics were transported to Europe, data from the National Police Department show that Turkey has indeed become a target country. And this is in spite of all the efforts of Turkey's narcotics teams, which seize an annual amount of narcotics much higher than the combined 19 other countries along the route. In 2003, 3,546 kilograms of heroin were seized in narcotics operations in Turkey. That figure had risen to over 9,000 kilograms as of 2007, with hundreds of police raids. Also in 2007, the police seized 510 kilograms of opium, 29 kilograms of morphine base, 114 kilograms of cocaine, 13,439 kilograms of marijuana and 1,007,577 ecstasy pills.