14.11.2023 - The United Nations Drug Control Agency has reviewed the preventive work in Norway and assessed whether it meets the international standards for drug prevention. The report shows that a lot of good work is being done across the country, but there is still room for improvement.
Norway receives much praise for its comprehensive and effective drug prevention work in the report. We have measures targeted at various age groups and in many arenas. The UN report particularly highlights the SLT model as a unique example of cross-sectoral collaboration.
Even though Norway receives a lot of praise, the UN agency still points out that many measures are not knowledge-based.
Important to evaluate The report differentiates between knowledge-based measures, partially knowledge-based measures, supportive measures, and non-knowledge-based measures. 40 percent of the measures are considered to be entirely or partially knowledge-based, 33 percent are classified as supportive measures, and 25 percent are considered to be non-knowledge-based.
One reason these latter measures are deemed non-knowledge-based is due to a lack of evaluation. Thus, we do not know for certain if they are effective as intended. “Please evaluate!” was the urging from the report’s main author, Giovanna Campello.
Hope more will follow Norway’s example The UN Drug Control Agency has collaborated with Korus Oslo on the report, but competence centers and municipalities across the country have contributed to the data in the report.
The UN Drug Control Agency hopes that more countries will follow Norway’s example and conduct such a review of the preventive work to map out strengths and weaknesses.
The report was handed over to State Secretary Ellen Rønning-Arnesen in the last week of September 2023.
Source: Actis