The College of Medicine at the University of Baghdad, in cooperation with the Iraqi Council for Medical Specialties and sponsored by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research , has organized a symposium entitled Substance Abuse Disorder.The purpose of the symposium was to reduce the phenomenon of the spread of drugs among university students, and included a comprehensive and detailed presentation of the concept of addiction, and who is the addict with an indication of the extent of the spread of narcotic substances in Iraq as well as the disturbing indicators represented by the increase in the number of those arrested on charges of drug abuse and drug addiction of all kinds. The symposium also shed the light on the causes of addiction, its symptoms, its triggers, and methods to protect children and teens from it.
On the sidelines of the symposium, a suggested protocol was represented in a mechanism for conducting a drug test on a sample of students distributed among (10) colleges, with (5) scientific specializations and (5) humanities specializations, equally between males and females, with voluntary participation while maintaining the confidentiality of the identity of the students (samples ).