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PM Ciolacu says drastic measures against drugs, though no mass testing
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said on Monday that drastic measures will be taken regarding drugs, but rejected the option of mass testing of students.
"One of my first visits after I became prime minister was to the Ministry of Education. Ever since I have said that we already have signals. These were among the first signals I received from the Romanian state as prime minister. There is coordination at the moment with the minister of Justice and the minister of the Interior. I also saw this morning the announcement of the President of Romania to enter with certain measures in the CSAT [Supreme Council for National Defence]. Drastic measures will be taken. And when I entered [the college], the first question the parents asked me was: 'What do we do about drugs?' We don't believe in mass testing," Ciolacu said on Monday, the first day of the 2023/2024 school year, at the "Anghel Saligny" Technical College, which he visited with Capital's District 3 Mayor Robert Negoita.
Ciolacu explained that legislative changes will be adopted, so that minors can be tested, with the consent of their parents, at state expense.
"But we have said that we are coming up with legislative changes so that if a parent wants their child to be tested, it will be done at the state's expense. There will also be changes with driver's licenses. (...)We may find that if young people between 16 and 18 are found positive for drugs in certain tests, they will not be allowed to get their licence from the age of 18. Maybe they think twice when they want to try this," Ciolacu added.
The prime minister underlined that "the state owes it to itself to act much more drastically and much more coordinatedly in the coming period."
"We don't have to test all the children in Romania to catch drug dealers. I believe that here we must act and if a high school management believes that a certain child should be tested, as he/she is a minor, they can coordinate with the parents, as is normal, and this test is done. But to turn it into such a national hysteria, in which we take children by force and test them, seems to me to be an inappropriate approach and that will not have the desired effect," Ciolacu said.
Asked whether drugs are a matter of national security, Ciolacu said, "Absolutely! At the moment, categorically. And this will be the level of approach."
