The largest anti-dependency programme in Europe is beginning in Tuscany.
The unprecedented experiment will involve 200 patients to be treated with two promising new drugs, aripiprazole and ropinirole.
The leader of the experiment is Pisa's Asl 5, who, along with 11 other health departments will launch the pharmaceutical programme to combat cocaine dependence. The entire project involves 36 specialists and 23 SerTs.
Tuscany's superintendent of social policies, Gianni Salvadori, said, ''We are promoters, supporters and investors in this important initiative that steers people, especially youth, away from cocaine use.
''It is one of the many ways and programmes that we have activated to combat this phenomenon and intervene in a concrete way. The project will begin immediately by locating 200 cocaine users willing to take part in the experiment''.
The problem of cocaine abuse reaches across social class. What was once considered the ''rich man's drug'' is now bought by all classes and is being used at increasingly young ages, including middle schoolers.
According to data from the recent Parliament Report on Drug Abuse, cocaine users are up, with the largest increase in adults between the ages of 25 and 34 for men and 15 and 24 for women.
Tuscany shows up in fifth place among cocaine use in Italy (2.8%). 2006 registered a 4.8% increase in cocaine use among Tuscan youth.
Not even the advent of the euro affected the price of cocaine. While the euro doubled the price of bread, food, petrol and clothing, cocaine has not recorded a price increase since the 1990s. Because of this, even an adolescent in middle school can buy a gram of cocaine with their weekly allowance.
Cocaine use represents a growing phenomenon in Tuscany; in 2007, of the nearly 21,000 people treated by social and health services, 40% of them presented symptoms that correlated with cocaine use.
According to a study by the Regional Health Department, approximately 59,000 adolescents between the ages of 14 and 19 have used illegal drugs and over 10,000 have done cocaine.
To respond to the problem, the region has allotted 110 million euro for the new experiment a figure that is to increase by 160 million euro for a project to take place in Pisa which includes a 50 resident house for recovering cocaine addicts.
Tuscany confirms itself once again as the region at the forefront of experimentation programmes aimed at combating drug abuse and as the region that knows how to give effective and concrete responses to the critiques on modern society.
