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ADVERTISEMENT“If you know a young person who you think is taking opioids, you need to take action”.
That’s the key message Denmark wants parents to keep in mind as part of its new campaign to get them to talk with their teenage children about the risk of opioids, a small but growing public health threat in the Nordic country.
The Danish health authority and the city of Copenhagen launched the campaign this week after discovering in a February survey that 47 per cent of parents do not know enough about opioids to talk to their children about them.
The campaign offers advice from teenagers and experts on how to talk to young people about opioids, which include some types of prescription painkillers as well as heroin and fentanyl, an ultra-potent synthetic opioid.
It says parents should broach the subject in a casual way, set clear expectations, and avoid becoming preachy or upset.
“With the new campaign, we will better equip parents and other adults around young people to talk about opioids – and show them how important a role they play for young people,” Jonas Egebart, director of the Danish health authority, said in a statement.
New approach to a growing problem
Parental outreach is one plank of a government plan announced last year to prevent young people from abusing opioids, which has been a growing public health problem in Denmark in recent years.
While some people take opioids legally – for example, cancer patients who are prescribed painkillers – they can quickly lead to addiction, which in turn can have deadly consequences.
From 2018 to 2023, the number of Danes aged 25 or younger who were hospitalised because of an opioid overdose rose from 142 to 239 – a 68 per cent increase.
In 2023, the country reported 116 opioid-related deaths, mostly tied to methadone and heroin, government data shows.
Denmark’s new approach to opioids includes a range of measures. People caught in possession of or selling the drugs were previously slapped with a fine, but under the government plan they could be sent to jail.
The country is also boosting its drug surveillance and will take steps to improve treatment options for people struggling with addiction.
