Source: Ministry of Social Development
Title: Skweyiya: Drug Awareness Week: International Day Against Drug Abuse
EXECUTIVE STATEMENT BY DR ZOLA SKWEYIYA, MINISTER OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, ON INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST DRUG ABUSE AND ILLICIT TRAFFICKING, National Assembly, 26 June 2003
Salutations
We are here today to join the world community of nations in marking the International Day Against Drug Abuse. This is indeed an important day in the calendar of the United Nations, humanity at large and not least our country in particular. This day highlights the fact that drug abuse as well as its illicit trafficking has indeed become one of the biggest challenges facing humanity in the 21st century.
When the UN in 1987 decided to give focus to this issue by dedicating this day as the International Day Against Drug Abuse, it sought to call on and challenge humanity to build an on-going awareness and consciousness amongst the people of the globe that drastic steps and measures ought to be taken as a matter of priority to arrest the proliferation of drug abuse, noting that this phenomenon had consequences for the world that were too ghastly to contemplate. The questions arising today are: What have we as South Africans done to confront this challenge? What more still needs be to done to deal with the issue of drug abuse and illicit trafficking even more effectively?
Honourable members, it will not be an exaggeration if I were to say, SA has, since the United Nations passed the resolution, done a lot to tackle this scourge, though there is still more work that needs to be done. The SA Government in particular has made sure that this issue receives priority attention nationally, throughout the African continent and the globe. South Africa has also been very central to regional African initiatives including the drafting of the C
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