Anti-Drug, etc and School

[Lufferkinzify]

Today in school we had an assembly on drugs. In the video we were shown, we just heard about a bunch of different people's lives (ex, a deaf girl, a depressed girl, a blind dude, blahblahblah) but the thing is... the video had NOTHING to do with drugs AT ALL. Infact I thought it was more about depression than drugs, in that case they should have done that instead.

It was plain stupid. And later the teachers were rambling on and on about how "great" the video was, and how many lives were going to be saved because of it (that's word-for-word too), and yadda yadda yadda, and us students are sitting there going O____O?

I think they should just get rid of all the stupid assemblies and pep ralleys and stuff... just makes things worse. And kids do this stuff. I don't, BTW, because I've been steering clear of that stuff since my Grandma got lung cancer and died of it (and she had only smoked, what, 2 cigars in her life?). But if kids still do it, what's the real high-five here?

I'd like to see everyone else's opinion. I don't know the company made the video, but I do know that they go all around the U.S. just to show it (they bragged 'bout that), it was called Dare to Move if you're interested in seeing it. Anyway I'm off and away now.

[Tom Duhamel]

I'm not sure where you live, but statistics show that drug education in both Canada and USA is inefficient, but they have never dared to change it in 20 years. They like to emphasize the old pattern: You smoke a joint, then need something stronger, and therefore will move on the mush, then acid, then cocaine, than heroine, and eventually die of it. All within a day or so. The assumption is based on the fact that nearly all cocaine users have started with marijuana. But the reality is, less than 2% of marijuana users will eventually try anything else.

They like to make you afraid of drugs but lining up a long list of dangerous effects of drugs, most of which are untrue. They think the young people are stupid and will not do drugs, because they make your fear them. Fact is, the young people are not stupid. They do realize they are being lied, and simply ignore anything said to them. They end up making choices based on no information at all.

Successful tests showed that the best approach is to teach them the truth, and let them make a choice based on facts and knowledge.

When I was at school, there was that teacher that was talking about drugs. She was trying to explain each drug, their effects, etc. When she said the price of each of them, many students in the class would come and correct her. Can't they hire someone that knows what they are talking about? It's like hiring a factory employee to teach you genetic.

[longears15]

I think that an open approach to drug use in schools is really important. When my parents were looking at a secondary school for me to go to (I started high school in 1997), there was a bit of a problem in this area with low grade drug use - mainly marijuana, but a small amount of harder stuff. There were three main schools that my parents and I looked at. School one admitted that they had a drug problem, and that any students caught using drugs were expelled on the spot. School two denied any problem. School three (the school I ended up at) admitted that they had a drug problem, and said that they favoured counselling and education to tackle the problem. These days, schools one and two still have significant problems with drugs - and not just marijuana these days - whereas school three has a very clean reputation.

It's important to be open, honest and lay down the facts as they are. There is a lot of potential for schools to do a really good job with drug education, and many just fall flat. Up to a point, it's much the same as sex education, I think (with the obvious difference that many drugs are illegal and sex isn't...) While I'm no advocate of legalising illicit drugs, just as teens are going to experiment with sex, some are going to experiment with drugs, and they need to be equipped with as much accurate information as possible before setting themselves on this path.

[geallach]

I do not think education always helps. Most teenagers I have encountered, for example, know a lot about sex, STD's, and protection, but still feel no need to protect themselves, and have had sex at a young age. Having left my teenage years behind not too long ago, I can say while teenagers knew what drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and unprotected sex could lead to, many just did not care. Some learn from experience; I knew one guy who used marijuana, and anyone who talked to him for long enough could see that it was effecting his emotions and making him extremely paranoid. I know far too many people who have died as a result of smoking. Teenagers, I think, want to believe that adults are just exaggerating these things to stop them from using, drinking or having sex, which sadly means that some end up learning the hard way.

It comes down ultimately to attitude, and I think that parents more than teachers have a huge influence in this. Imagine you are a teenager; you are a walking bag of hormones, perhaps subconciously on the lookout for things to rebel against. Your parents tell you "Don't have sex!" "Don't drink, smoke or take drugs or it will kill you!", but when you try to talk to them about it, they do not want to because they are afraid it might encourage you. Well, you want to know, so you dig around yourself. You hear from fellow teenagers how they have done this and that, and nothing ever happened to them, so that's not too bad. Your parents are just trying to control you. So you do it. This is just an example of one scenarois; tere are many, but the important issue is how parents deal with it.

My parents used, inadvertently, reverse-psychology subconsciously on me as I was growing up. I never felt any inclination to take drugs, smoke, etc., because my parents encouraged me to get all the information I could about these things. They also never told me not to do them, so that rebellious part of my teenage brain could not freak out at being told not to do something. This probably would not work for every kid, but knowing my parents trusted me to do the right thing meant a lot.

[unalisaa]

I do not think education always helps. Most teenagers I have encountered, for example, know a lot about sex, STD's, and protection, but still feel no need to protect themselves, and have had sex at a young age. Having left my teenage years behind not too long ago, I can say while teenagers knew what drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and unprotected sex could lead to, many just did not care. Some learn from experience; I knew one guy who used marijuana, and anyone who talked to him for long enough could see that it was effecting his emotions and making him extremely paranoid. I know far too many people who have died as a result of smoking. Teenagers, I think, want to believe that adults are just exaggerating these things to stop them from using, drinking or having sex, which sadly means that some end up learning the hard way.

I'm inclined to say that if that is the case, yes, they should learn the hard way. If one's incapable of making an information-based decision at age 15, 16, 17, etc, they're screwed. If teens are really that stupid, let them. Human survival and evolution is based on the ability to learn.

Or could this be about misinformation? If it was dismissed so easily as exaggerated, perhaps something should be done about the teaching materials instead of going "oh, darn, those kids never listen". I think it's important to teach in a neutral tone, too. People are quick to pick up on when someone is trying to tell them how to act.

To tell you the truth, though, I don't have much faith in school-based drug, alcohol and sex education no matter how well it is executed. I skipped practically all the classes we had on those subjects, yet I have astonishingly avoided contracting an STD, a baby, alcoholism, or cigarette butts in my shirt pocket. Lots of information was very readily available elsewhere.
Every teenager in the westernised world has access to Google. I don't think it's about telling them how to do things, but about creating an atmosphere in which it is expected that everyone makes an informed choice. For parents, this also means no keeping your kids in the dark.
If we never tell Jenny that alcohol, marijuana, and penises/whatever she's into exist, she'll never consider it, right?

[Phoeberg]

My school had one 40 minute class on what different drugs would do to you when I was 14, and a mother gave a talk on how her son had become addicted to heroin and had died as a result of an overdose. It was heartbreaking to hear. However in contrast to that one of my teachers once told me and an entire class that she could "get any drug she wanted delivered to the school by the end of the school day". Apparently there was some ice-cream van that sold drugs on the side and she knew the man who owned it...that's not exactly the impression of drugs you want. Plenty of people in my year did take drugs despite it being a very nice school and area. It just goes to show that people will do things regardless of where they are brought up and what they are taught. That mother's talking about her son and her crying in front of us all was enough to convince me never to do it, but obviously it didn't have the same effect on others in my year.