NATIONAL STRATEGY ON DRUGS 2003 -2004

Chapter 1 - GENERAL PRESENTATION
Chapter 2 - INTRODUCTION
Chapter 3 - GOVERNING PRINCIPLES, STRATEGIC VIEW, GOAL AND OBJECTIVES
                   OF THE STRATEGY
Chapter 4 - SPECIFIC INTERVENTION AREAS
Chapter 5 - INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK
Chapter 6 - INFORMATIONAL SYSTEMS
Chapter 7 - FINANCING
Chapter 8 - EVALUATION

CHAPTER 6
INFORMATIONAL SYSTEMS

Introduction
Taking into account the extent and complexity of drugs phenomenon in Romania, as well as the necessity to have a high level control on illicit drugs use and trafficking, a national focal point has been set up recently in Romania. The Romanian National Focal Point was designed as a joint and independent organism (made up initially from two representatives of the Ministry of Health and Family and two representatives of the Ministry of Interior-officers within the General Directorate for Countering Organized Crime and Anti-drug). This institution has been subsequently named the Romanian Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (RMCDDA) and it running as a Romanian technical liaison structure with the European Union, being in charge with the monitoring the Romania situation on drugs and with the exchange of information between source-institutions and the European Centre for Drugs and Drug Addicts
Until 2001, the task of Focal Point was provisionally assured by the Department for Information Analyzes within the General Directorate for Countering the Organized Crime and Anti-drug. The 1998 and 1999 national reports were produced by this department, but as drug phenomenon in Romania increased, the necessity of a specialized structure for analyzing dates has appeared.
During year 2001, benefiting from the twinning Project "Fight against Drugs" it was decided that the future RMCDDA to be located within the Institute for Health Management Services (IMSS), a subordinated structure of the Ministry of Health and Family. The effective activity of the RMCDDA started in April 2002, after the allocation of space and logistics for the specific activities.
As already specified, the RMCDDA is the monitoring center that will centralize all information get from the institutions that have data in the field. The data will be properly analyzed and shared into two main components of politics in the field of drugs:
• Drug Demand Reduction:
- "Infectious diseases associated to drug use" key indicator
- "Drug Related Death" key indicator
- "Drug Related Treatment Demand" key indicator
- "Prevalence of drug use" key indicator
- "General Population Surveys" key indicator
• Drug Supply Reduction:
- Availability and market supply
- Price of drugs on illicit market
- Purity of drugs trafficked on the illicit market
- Social problems associated to the drug use and trafficking
- Offences associated to the drug use.
The results of the analysis will be submitted to the policymakers at the level of the ministries involved.
The RMCDDA staff attended the training courses in Romania and abroad, organized by the EMCDDA and the Twinning Project signed between Romania, Spain and United Kingdom. The support received during these courses was decisive for the establishment of an action plan of the RMCDDA that comply with the EMCDDA respective standards.

General and Specific Objectives

General objectives

To facilitate a global, reliable on and permanently updated vision on the problems related to drug use (including tobacco, alcohol and other psychoactive substances that cause addiction) in Romania, that would allow the improvement of the decision-making process and would have an important contribution to the preparation and evaluation of response policies in the case of drug use.

Specific objectives:

- Identifying and defining the data and the data sources
- Setting up an informational network regarding the drug field
- Acknowledging drug use prevalence tendencies and characteristics
-Identifying and measuring the trends of drug-related problems - the sanitary, judiciary, social aspects.
- Measuring the tendency of psychoactive substances supply
- Acknowledging the appropriate responses regarding illegal drug use and trafficking (legislation, programs, projects)
- Analyzing data offered by indicators, inquiries etc and issuing a national annual report
- Transmitting information to decision-making factors both at national and European level and to other interested institutions
- Promoting specific research for each indicator and training staff in order to improve the data and information collecting methodology
- Providing data for elaborating a study
- Studying the population's attitude and opinion in concerning with drug use and users, and the programs related to this phenomenon
- Establishing a documentary center (written bibliographical material - hard copies and electronic format).

The informational network

One of the main objectives of the twinning project is the development of the RMCDDA structure.
RMCDDA is going to be an informational database containing data related to illegal drug use and trafficking, as well as analyses and statistics on this topic. For this purpose, the identification of the information sources is a priority in the process of constituting the network.
Following the activities carried out by the project, the Spanish and Romanian experts have analyzed and identified several data sources, as well as various procedures of data collecting and coding.
The network monitors the data and data sources situation for the five key indicators required by the EMCDDA.

1. Population surveys
It is an estimation of the drug use percentage as reported to the total of the population (past or present), being considered a key indicator in evaluating the situation at a certain moment, and for the development and evolution of the policies in this domain. It is important to know which are the groups where drug users are concentrated, as well as their models/tendencies.

Sources:
National Statistics Institute
The Institute for Health Services Management
NGOs

2. Prevalence and models of problematic drugs
It refers to the users groups supervision. "Problematic" drugs can mean drugs such as opium, cannabis and/or amphetamine. This definition excludes Ecstasy and cannabis users, as well as the people who don't use opium, cocaine and amphetamine on a regular basis.

Sources:
Institute for Medical Statistics
NGOs

3. Drug Related Infectious Diseases
Prevalence and incidence of HIV/HVB/HVC

Sources:
Ministry of Health and Family
Institute for Medical Statistics
NGOs

4. Drug Related Deaths
The mortality registers for the general population and the specialized statistics registrars, as well as various studies on drug users. The number of deaths directly caused by drug use (overdoses) is often used for a simple general estimation of the situation in a certain country. Also, it is important to know the number of deaths among the young population, which is the main group affected by this problem.

Sources:
"Mina Minovici" Forensic Institute
Institute for Medical Statistics

5. Drug Treatment Demand
It refers to the statistic data provided by the treatment centers or other units providing specialized medical assistance.

Sources:
Any treatment institutions that reports and sends data to the Ministry of Health and Family
Institute for Medical statistics
Developing a network for collecting data that follows these key indicators, the RMCDDA strategy will follow two main directions:
• Demand Reduction (Indicators 3, 4, and 5)
• Supply Reduction; in this way, a series of "core" indicators (drug price on the market, number of arrests, drug captures) will be developed, in closely co-operation with GDCOCA and the specialized departments of the Ministry of Justice.