Press Releases

Budapest, May 31, 2010 15:00

Supported by Magyar Telekom, the Kék Pont ("Blue Point") Drug Consulting Center and Drug Outpatient Treatment Foundation launched today its virtual cannabis outpatient consulting at the website www.kannabiszpont.hu. The unique service in Hungary offers marihuana users the possibility to receive treatment through the Internet.

With Magyar Telekom's support, the Kék Pont Foundation is intent on changing, reshaping and reforming the social opinion concerning the use of drugs and, opening a new era in the treatment of users, it is trusting in positive results.

Györke Orsolya, Head of Magyar Telekom's PR and brand management department said the following about the launch of the virtual cannabis outpatient treatment: "With this initiative we expand our social responsibility efforts to an area, which cannot be avoided if considering the younger generation. The number of drug users has significantly increased by today in Hungary. Young people spend long hours online and in surveys they identified the web as the first source of reference for drugs. That is why we have decided that as a responsible infocommunications company we should also take part in ensuring that, instead of merely providing information about the negative effects of drugs, the Internet should also offer specific help through an online site for those who want to quit the use of drugs."

The four-week online self-help program is primarily geared at ensuring that those who do not avail of the traditional medical procedure should be enabled, by anonym registration, to reduce or fully quit the use of marihuana.

Those visiting the kannabiszpont.hu site may first complete a test of their cannabis usage. Depending on the outcome of the test and by following the suggestions offered by the program they can alter their marihuana consumption. Through their anonymous registration they may immediately embark upon the therapy. Everybody is free to determine their own goal and the program supports them in achieving it by offering continuous feedback and personalized "home assignments". If the user needs it, personal consulting is also available at the Kék Pont outpatient centres in Budapest.

In Hungary cannabis (marihuana) is the most common illegal drug. About 10% of the young people aged 15-29 have already tried cannabis at least once, and, although we lack precise data about the number of users or addicts, surveys suggest that the problem is not limited to a narrow pool of people. Ages and social status of the users is greatly mixed and there can be several tens of thousands who can be considered as problem users. It is mainly these problem users of cannabis that the new web site has been prepared for on the basis of the professional experiences and with the permission of the prestigious Jellinek Institute of the Netherlands.

As part of its corporate social responsibility, Magyar Telekom has selected through a competition the Kék Pont Foundation to be one of its civil strategic partners, and supports its three-tier, comprehensive preventive and health development program developed for three target groups. The strategic partnership is to last for three years and means HUF 10 million support per year for the foundation, which contains the elaboration of a national health promotion program, the development of a community web site and the implementation of a program designed to close the digital divide. With this initiative, a broad publicity has been given to a problem and social phenomenon that affected so far only a narrow group of people. In this way the company and the online self-help program may expose the issue to an open social discourse, providing further support to activities of the Kék Pont Foundation.

About Magyar Telekom
Magyar Telekom is Hungary's biggest provider of telecom services. It provides a full range of telecommunications and infocommunications (ICT) services including fixed line and mobile telephony, data transmission and non-voice as well as IT and systems integration services. The business activities of Magyar Telekom are managed by two business units: Consumer services (the home-related services brand T-Home and the mobile communications brand T-Mobile) and Business services (T-Systems brand). Magyar Telekom is the majority owner of Makedonski Telekom, the leading fixed line and mobile operator in Macedonia and it holds a majority stake in Crnogorski Telekom, the leading telecommunications operator in Montenegro. Magyar Telekom's majority shareholder (59.21%) is MagyarCom Holding GmbH, fully owned by Deutsche Telekom AG.
For further information visit www.telekom.hu.