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There is much talk about the need for drugs education
and millions of pounds are being spent on it. A whole industry has
developed supplying information packs, training specialist teachers and
road shows by many voluntary organisations.
Unfortunately, here is no evidence that drugs education works - that it
prevents people starting on drugs or helps people to come off drugs.
Indeed the opposite is true and I’ll explain why, in its current format,
drugs education cannot work.
Adults use and abuse drugs every day legally
Alcohol and nicotine are legalised drugs. A whole industry has been
built on them. There are special places designed to sell and consume
these drugs. Use of them is socially acceptable. We consume alcohol in
homes and in public and many of us have experienced the toxic effects of
the morning hangover or, in extreme cases, being violently sick. There
is even debate about alcohol being good for you in some instances.
Alcohol and nicotine are killers. About 30,000 people a year in the
United Kingdom die from smoking related diseases and there are about 5
million alcoholics. Every day ten people die from alcohol poisoning and
or alcohol related violence or accidents.
How are children to make sense of this? Adults taking drugs that can
kill them, make them drunk and cause millions of pounds of property
damage a year. We as educators are telling them not to take drugs. Women
now know that smoking when pregnant harms the baby yet potential mums
continue smoking. Until drugs education makes this explicit and deals
with it, it will not succeed. The message we give young people is that
some drugs are acceptable and fun but others aren’t.
Drug use is a criminal offence
We all know why there are laws - we want to protect people. But they are
not working. Because drug use is a criminal offence, drugs education to
the youngsters is authority (parents) telling them what to do -
preventing them having fun. Many children don't like their parents.
Children have become used to the parent’s tactic of trying to frighten
them by saying something is not good for you. Many people will flout the
law merely because it is the law. Children will ask why adults are
having fun and we are not.
Secondly making people criminals because they take drugs shuts down
meaningful discussion. Young people will not tell what is in their
hearts and will not be open about what is going in the neighbourhood.
How terrible - making children and others criminals because they are
silly. Unless all drugs are legalised, drugs education will not work. We
must be honest. Taking drugs can be fun - but beware the terrible
dangers - addiction and damage to health.
Drugs education has not been adequately defined
What exactly is drugs education? Is there an agreed, or any, definition?
What are its aims? How do we know if all the resources spent on drugs
education are having the desired effect? Unless those who promote drugs
educators can explain straightforwardly what it is, we can't expect
education officials and practical educators to take it on.
Drugs educators have been doing too much telling
Almost all adults want to help children avoid the pain caused by wrong
choices. Hard experience has taught us principles, which if followed by
children, will lead them away from danger. However, while telling and
conditioning are necessary and acceptable with toddlers, telling does
not work once children are past about ten years of age. Children (and
adults) know that taking certain drugs will harm them but they still
take them; they know that smoking kills them early and injecting drugs
may lead to HIV and all the upheaval that causes. Merely supplying more
and more information (even if it is shocking) about how dangerous some
drugs are and the pain they cause, does not change attitudes.
Drugs educators have been concentrating on treating the symptoms
instead of dealing with the causes of drug-use
Despite the fact that we are wasting our time with drugs education, we
keep doing it because it makes us feel good - we seem to be doing
something. Unfortunately we don't know what else to do. However, most
people have already admitted (but many are not prepared to say it) that
we are dealing only with the symptoms. Without the fundamental work that
will change values (the causes) the symptoms will perennially re-appear.
If children demand drugs, people will make and supply them. Drugs
educators will be more effective if they concentrate on changing values.
But how many are willing to do this? It is very difficult and
uncomfortable as the next reason shows.
Drugs educators have not really answered some tough values questions for
themselves
For example, why are drugs bad? Why are some dangerous drugs illegal and
others not? Why do we criminalise a person for taking drugs? If I like
the effect of a particular drug and take it at home in private so that I
do not harm people at work or in public, what is wrong with that? Why
shouldn't we legalise drugs as we have alcohol and cigarettes. We could
regulate their sale and then tax them heavily and plough the money into
health programmes. Unless drugs educators make their values explicit,
they will have little success in changing youngsters' values. What
exactly do we as drugs educators want from youngsters?
Values education is at the heart of drugs education
Instead of telling and informing we should, in open respectful
discussion, help youngsters to answer the same questions that we as
drugs educators are struggling with. In a values education approach, the
educator's view counts for no more and no less than the pupils'. This
open, reasoned and non-authoritarian but focused discussion gets people
to change. Values education works on a paradox - without trying to
convince people to behave responsibly, and allowing them to take time
(maybe even six months) to come to their own realisation of what is
right and wrong, most people come round to a way of behaving that is
generally acceptable. A values education approach results in children
coming to know (without being told) that taking drugs is damaging in
every respect of one’s life.
To some, the values education approach may seem "airy-fairy". But isn't
this just denial: there is an extensive literature and there is evidence
that values education works for several social problems including misuse
of drugs. Some drugs educators may feel uncomfortable with a values
education approach because it is unfamiliar, but what is our discomfort
compared to the pain we can save by getting others to see this pain
before it happens?
For more information and resources on values education or to invite Dr
Robb to speak at your event go to www.valueseducation.co.uk |
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