“Which kid from high school knows that you’re dealing drugs?” The way things are going, soon some kid in a classroom will raise their hand to answer positively. The conversations between the two criminal groups that sold drugs to school students in the northern suburbs of Athens were made public on Friday, but they are no different from similar ones that have appeared in the news in the past.
A quick search on the Internet will show similar dialogues between members of gangs that trafficked drugs to minors from 10 years ago. Their activities had spread throughout Attica; southern, western or northern suburbs – the problem is not limited to a specific social and economic class. The buying and selling takes place in parks, playgrounds, bus stops, inside school campuses, as the reports state. Every now and then we find that increasingly younger children (as young as 12 years old) are involved in trafficking and use.
Two months ago, Kathimerini organized an open event on teenage delinquency at a high school in the suburb of Kifissia. The students spoke about their problems, the need to be heard by adults, to be supported by psychologists in schools. Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrysochoidis pointed out that many juvenile offenders come from environments that lack adequate parental care and supervision.
