AMERICA/CHILE - The Catholic Church committed to fighting drug abuse: suffering caused by drug abuse is a social phenomenon which involves real people and reveals 'new forms of poverty'

Santiago (Agenzia Fides) - "It is out of love for Christ that we are called to undertake initiatives of prevention ", said Bishop Cristián Contreras Villarroel, auxiliary Bishop of Santiago, at the first meeting on 5 December between the National Drug Control Council (Conace) and representatives of the Christian world. The aim of the meeting was to intensify efforts on the part of the Catholic Church and other Christian communities to prevent drug abuse, especially among young people. The participants included 200 people working in this field, and experts of the local Catholic Church, include members of the national Commission for Alcohol and Drug Abuse which depends on the Catholic Bishops' Conference and the Evangelical Churches in Chile. The participants identified ten guidelines for preventing and combating drug abuse.
For some time the local Church has been involved in helping to prevent drug abuse among young people. In a message "Towards a Bi-Centenary free of the plague of drug abuse" the Bishops said "the problem of drug abuse affects many individuals, families and areas of Chile today", a situation which challenges the Church "to find more concrete solutions, keeping the person as the principle and end" (see Fides 26/9/2006).
"Coming back to life after drugs" was the title of the intervention at the meeting by Bishop Cristián Contreras Villarroel in which he said "suffering caused by drug abuse is a social phenomenon which involves real people and reveals 'new forms of poverty' which the Compendium of Catholic Social Doctrine urges us to tackle". The Document of Aparecida also mentions the problem of drug abuse, "like oil its spreads everywhere. It knows no frontiers, geographical or human. It attacks rich and poor countries, children, young people adults the elderly, men and women". This is why for some years now the Church "has worked to assist individuals, families, communities, afflicted by this plague", the Bishop said. And in this field the Church works in three directions: prevention, accompaniment and support for government policies to fight this pandemic. "In the field of prevention we insist on education to values for children, especially the value of life and love, the value of individual responsibility and the human dignity of the children of God. With regard to accompaniment the Church helps people suffering from drug abuse to rediscover their dignity and to overcome this sickness. Helping to eradicate the phenomenon the Church denounces the crime of drug trafficking which trades human lives for profit and violence in its basest expressions" said the Bishop who concluded expressing the Church's full support for initiatives in this field undertaken by the government, by civil society, other Christian Churches to assist people suffering from the plague of drug abuse. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 6/12/2007; righe 40, parole 532)