​Health Minister Alexandru Rafila believes that drug testing of students should be carried out, but only after everything is “very well documented” from a technical point of view and after it is clear in what conditions it will take place.

“I personally favor doing it after it is very well documented from a technical point of view. We see who we test, what the conditions are, how we establish parental consent, which obviously must be written for this, and the technical way of doing the testing,” the health minister told Agerpres on Thursday.

According to him, it is necessary to inform parents through a campaign.

The minister noted that there are quick “indicative” tests that are done from urine or saliva, and confirmatory tests from blood that can be done in a laboratory.

“It’s a sensitive topic, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t deal with it. This should be very well prepared through an information campaign primarily for parents. From a technical point of view, there is the possibility of rapid tests that can be done either from urine or from saliva, and these rapid tests, which are indicative in the case of a positive result, must be confirmed by a laboratory test that takes blood from a person who has had positive test. Considering the fact that we are discussing children and adolescents, it is necessary to be very careful and conduct testing only with the consent of parents in two cases: either at the direct, clear request of parents, or in the event that representatives of the school unit, the teaching staff observe a certain type of behavior, which can be caused by, say, substance use, then I can claim it,” explained Rafila.

The Minister of Health believes that if the confirmatory test turns out to be positive, a set of measures on the part of the educational institution is necessary, such as psychological counseling, avoiding discrimination or stigmatization.

“Again, after informing and with the consent of the parents, and such an express test, if it is positive, should be accompanied by a confirmatory test, this should also mean a package of information regarding the measures to be taken by the educational institution, i.e. psychological ones. counseling the child, being very careful about the identity of the person who has a positive test to avoid discrimination and stigmatization, and then discussing together what are the therapeutic resources, because in the case of acute poisoning with psychoactive substances there is a treatment of 10 – 12 days in a hospital that treats such pathology, usually these are psychiatric hospitals, but further recovery, psychological assistance of a person and his family is very important,” said the Minister of Health.

He argued that testing could be one of the activities that are part of a complete package.

“Therefore, we must develop a set of measures, not just one. Everyone is talking about testing. One of the measures can be testing. In addition, there is another side that must be considered to reduce the possibility of drugs entering schools. I believe that we are all responsible here, both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Administration and Internal Affairs. In general, we, as a society, must very clearly reject this phenomenon, which leads to temptations for children or teenagers, to the spread of this scourge, and this has medium and long-term consequences for the development of the young generation,” said Alexandrou Rafila. .