First, the good news: the principle of “don't look away, take early action” remains unchanged. On the contrary, Section 7 of the CanG now attaches central importance to early intervention by the legislator. During the legislative process, explicit reference was made to our well-established and effective early intervention program “Early Intervention for First-Time Drug Users (FreD)”. The range of early intervention measures is to be expanded to such an extent that all young people under the age of 18 who violate the administrative ban on cannabis use (without committing a criminal offense) have access to appropriate measures at a reasonable cost. Low-threshold participation is to be made possible and, in the future, also digitally.

The principle of “successful cooperation” is and remains central to the program: a local steering group works with the relevant stakeholders to identify the best ways of reaching young people who engage in risky consumption. The better the agreements on cooperation and with the FreD provider, the more successfully it will be possible to respond to conspicuous behavior involving legal and illegal addictive substances. In the CanG, the police and regulatory authorities as well as local public youth welfare agencies are mentioned in particular. Even before the CanG came into force, other local cooperation partners played an important role. These include all conceivable settings in which young people have always been noticed for risky consumption and referred to FreD providers: schools, residential youth welfare services, training companies, road traffic authorities, etc. These very diverse local cooperation arrangements will certainly need to be intensified in the near future. For referring institutions, FreD offers a great opportunity to enable young people to actively address their own (risky) consumption. In this way, conspicuous behavior is used in a meaningful educational way instead of being excessively sanctioned. And through good cooperation, it can relieve the burden on the referring institutions.

FreD has also undergone continuous development in recent decades. With the addition of FreD-ATS (amphetamine-type stimulants/NPS), however, the program has been responding to the changing (mixed) consumption patterns of young people for some time now. The methods and content of the FreD program have been adapted accordingly. It remains to be seen whether there will be a shift in demand for FreD (e.g., due to changes in police control behavior).

With the BMG-funded project “FreD Next Level,” we responded to existing and anticipated needs in parallel with the development of CanG. With blu:prevent, we are combining successful digital addiction prevention with FreD. Together with young people and former FreD participants, the program's appearance was updated and possible strategies for increasing voluntary participation were examined. The next step in this project will be to focus more strongly on schools. One milestone will be the “fred_online” offering, which is currently being tested and is integrated into the blu:app. This addition will enrich the analog implementation of FreD courses, but it will also enable FreD providers to offer the program digitally or in a hybrid format. This takes into account the changing communication behavior of young people as well as the challenges faced in rural areas, for example.

The LWL Coordination Office for Addiction, as the sponsor of the FreD program, will engage in dialogue with FreD trainers and FreD coordinators in the federal states and state addiction agencies over the coming months to explore how the resulting challenges can be overcome and what opportunities will arise from this new awareness of the importance of early intervention. The LWL-KS will provide FreD providers with supporting materials for promoting FreD. Where possible, relevant stakeholders should also be provided with specific information. We are confident that, despite all the challenges, the FreD program can make positive use of the changed awareness of early intervention that has been expressed in the context of the CanG.

The following will continue to apply in the future: Any conspicuous use of legal or illegal addictive substances should be followed by a health-related (brief) intervention. In this way, breaks in young people's biographies can be avoided at an early stage and, if necessary, further (internal and external) help can be pointed out to them.

April 8, 2024

A good start requires careful preparation. It usually takes three to five months to motivate and inform partners and conclude cooperation agreements. After that, the program must be publicized and the material and human resources must be made available.

In short, the first FreD course can start after six months at the earliest.

The FreD logo may be used by anyone who complies with the quality guidelines.

Early intervention services should now be standard practice at addiction counseling and prevention centers. Additional funding usually has to be negotiated with the local authority (or state authority, if applicable). However, agreements on specialist service hours or participant fees are also conceivable. Funding through donations, fines, and sponsorship are further possibilities.

Definitely yes, as proven by the European project FreD goes net.

The basic principle of FreD is that an intervention should follow an incident. In a school class, it is rare to assume that all students have behaved inappropriately together. Therefore, one should limit oneself to the young people who have attracted attention.

They play a role in two ways: In principle, parents/guardians can also enroll their children in a FreD course if they are concerned about their child's drug use. Some FreD locations also have specific programs to which they invite the parents/guardians of FreD participants.

To ensure that the period between detection and intervention is not too long, six to twelve courses should be offered per year.

Given the wide range of tasks performed by the participating institutions, some cooperation partners occasionally lose sight of the FreD program. In addition, there are staff changes or absences due to illness, and information is not passed on. Telephone or personal contact with cooperation partners should therefore be maintained on an ongoing basis.

Some providers of FreD courses prefer a more neutral location—for example, not the premises of an addiction and drug counseling center, where long-term addicts are visibly present at the same time. The courses can be run by addiction support services, addiction prevention centers, youth welfare services, or other regional partners.

It is important to differentiate between which program reaches which target group and which form of intervention is used. FreD is designed as a short-term, early intervention in a group of peers; some of the above-mentioned programs are designed for the medium term and may be considered therapy. It is therefore essential to take a differentiated approach to the specific focus of each program.