Tunisia- Hatem Ben Salem: 9 % of Tunisian students use drugs

More than 9 %of students in Tunisia use drugs, announced Tunisian Minister of Education and Interim Minister of Higher Education Hatem Ben Salem.
Speaking at a workshop on “the impact of drugs and addiction on the family and national security”, Salem asserted that 77 % of those who abuse drugs in Tunisia are aged between 16 and 18.
Ben Salem further stated that the Ministry of Education is collaborating with the Interior Ministry in administering security patrols in the proximity of educational establishments.
He also emphasised the necessity to incorporate the information about drug-related perils in the educational curricula to stop this phenomenon, which he defined as a “deadly disaster” in schools.
On his part, Fouad El Aouni, Director General of the National Youth Observatory reported that 53 % of young people in Tunisia used drugs for the first time between the ages of 16 and 20.