Fixing What’s Wrong With Drug Education
A recent survey conducted by Join Together a program of the Boston University School of Public Health shows that few teachers believe that alcohol and other drug prevention programs work. Only 2 percent of more than 3,700 respondents felt that their school-based prevention program is effective. The report says that teachers are skeptical of the prevention programs they deliver. It goes on to say that teachers cite the need more relevant study materials, more time to do prevention, more support, and more training.
Although more training and enhanced study materials would certainly do no harm, how does this change the current destructive belief permeating our schools and our culture that drug prevention doesnt work? It is not a matter of more time, more study materials, or more training, but a need for a fundamental change in how we define prevention, set prevention goals, and understand how children adopt and reinforce healthy and unhealthy behaviors.
For three decades the United States has been waging an expensive and ineffective drug war a war more political than practical. In 1993 the federal government spent $1.7 billion on the drug war and in 1999 17.9 billion. The most ubiquitous of drug education programs DARE (Drug Awareness Resistance Education) which was started in Los Angeles in 1983 is plagued by research showing its lack of effectiveness. DARE currently costs taxpayers between 1 and 1.3 billion dollars a year. In addition, the DARE programs premise that early drug education inoculates kids from future drug use in high school is both nave and lacking a fundamental understanding of child development. In the most recent survey of adolescent drug trends conducted by Monitoring the Future, 48% of 12th graders had a drink within the last thirty days and by the time a student graduates from high school nearly half have tried an illicit drug – most likely marijuana. While recent trends in drinking and drug use show decreases in most categories, underage drinking and most notably marijuana use remain a regular experience of teenage life. What have we gotten for our money? And how does the current drug education approach reflect the reality that most teenagers face every weekend?