“For our children”, fund-raising campaign of San Patrignano to support families

The consumption of substances is increasing among young people, 15-19 years (ESPAD data).

San Patrignano alongside parents take on an educational challenge, providing valuable answers both in the field of recovery and prevention.

650 thousand Italian teenagers have used substances in 2015. This was underlined by ESPAD study of the Italian Institute of Clinical Physiology of the CNR in Pisa. Numbers that are reflected in the tragic news stories of these days, describing a society where families are left to do it on their own in the difficult challenge of education.

A challenge that San Patrignano always embraces alongside parents, to aid them and help their family, both through the collection of activities, with more than 26 thousand residents that have resided here complimentary since ’78 up to now, and through prevention projects, accompanying 50 thousand students yearly through the community. “Every day we face desperate parents who do not know how to deal with their kids,” – expressed Antonio Tinelli, president of the community of San Patrignano –“We try to assist them through our experiences, knowing how hard it is to grow up in this society, where the buzz is considered the norm and where dependencies often hide much deeper hardships.”

To those mothers and fathers who are dedicated to the new fundraising campaign of San Patrignano “For our children”, through which the community wants to reiterate its full support and determination to stay free of charge for residents, supporting them in the difficult task of educating and supporting teenagers. A campaign that was supported by mobile phone companies Tre, Wind, TIM, Vodafone, Poste Mobile, Coop Voce and fixed network, TIM, Infostrada, Fastweb, Vodafone, Tiscali, TWT and Convergences. Supporting the initiative, the following broadcasters: Mediaset, La7, Sky, networks, terrestrial digital TV, Discovery Italy, San Marino RTV and many local broadcasters, were involved in this campaign.

A symbolic gesture of the campaign is the embrace between parents and their children, a hug of joy, expressing a parent’s love for a lost child. The same hug that closes the video spot for the campaign which was directed by Stefano Mordini, who has also directed ‘Acciaio’ and ‘Pericle il nero’, which was intended to highlight the daily commitment of the community to support families, through recovery activities and preventions done at visiting schools.

The campaign will raise funds to support the upgrading and expansion of two centers for minors, so that the Community can respond even more efficiently to the many requests that come from the courts for young offenders, many requests from families. As many as 486 minors, have made their entry in San Patrignano over the years, a number that has grown even more, considering that today there are 76 residents, who were minors at the time of their entry into the community. Residents who have come with their parents’ desperately pleading for help; San Patrignano tries to respond in to every request.

Drug use and minors

The transnational study ESPAD (European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs) is conducted annually by the Institute of Clinical Physiology of the Italian National Research Council (IFC-CNR) to gather information on the prevalence of illegal drugs consumption among 15-19 years old students in Italy.

From the 2015 research it has emerged that:

• 34% of students have used at least one illegal psychoactive substance in the course of their lives and about 27%, over the last year. About 650 thousand, are those who have used substances.
• 15% of students do multi-consumption
• The most widely used substance is cannabis, followed by cocaine, stimulants and hallucinogens whereas heroin is less widespread.
• 1/3 of Italian students aged 15-19 years have tried cannabis at least once in their lifetime, while almost 27% have used it recently.
• About 4% of Italian students have tried cocaine at least once in their lifetime and almost 3% did so during the year of this research.
• 18% of students said that they had used drugs not prescribed by a doctor at least once in their lifetime and 10% of them had during this year.
• 5,000 were 15-year-old male teenagers (about 2%) who have used heroin; among them it’s the most popular drug after cannabis.
• As it is true that sniffing has favored the first approach with this drug, it is equally true that as many as 3,000 of these adolescents, have come to inject themselves; this emphasizes how the perception of the risk of this substance that may lead to Aids, has decreased over the years.

Minors taken into custody by the social services of Juvenile Justice for the first time during 2015, were 7,752 and of these, 5,131 were violated for the alleged offenses of art.73.

Minors and young adults taken into custody by the Juvenile Services for use / abuse of drugs were 3,647, 94% mainly males, and of Italian nationality there were 85%. The consumption of drugs is generally associated with alcohol.

In 2015 there were 1,688 minors sent in therapeutic communities of which 280 for consumption of psychoactive substances. Minors signaled to the Judicial Authority in 2015 were 1.125 (432 of them in custody) equal to 4.06% of the total of persons reported at national level, with an increase of 6.33% respect to the previous year.

Administrative sanctions in accordance to art. 75 of DPR 309/90

Even younger age groups (up to 14 years and 15-17 years old) this shows a significant increase that confirms the information learned during the interviews at the UTG prefectures. The operators of NOT, operating Nuclei for drug addiction, confirm that the age of first use of drugs and / or psychotropic drugs, has fallen, moreover, among even more reported people, there was in recent years, an increase in “multi-drug users,” subjects, that combine drugs with alcohol.