Education Position

Drug Watch International
Position Statement

EDUCATION

Instruction about the harmful effects of psychoactive drugs is a vital part of preventive education regarding alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, but it will be insufficient or counter productive unless it is:

· presented with a clear "no-use" message,

· developmentally appropriate (matched to the age and capabilities of the learner), and

· part of a larger, community-wide effort to establish and sustain drug-free norms.

Drug prevention and education go hand in hand with strict drug law enforcement and abstinence-based treatment. The message must be clear and consistent: Drugs have a destructive impact on society as well as on the individual. Drug prevention education, treatment, law enforcement, and research are each needed and mutually reinforcing components of effective anti-drug efforts. In the U.S., the average cost to society of a heavy drug user is nearly one million dollars during their lifetime, and every dollar spent on effective prevention saves between four and five dollars in future treatment costs. Drug prevention is the responsibility of everyone.

Background:

Education is a lifelong experience that involves every facet of our society. Successful drug prevention education efforts speak with one voice and are characterized by a universal and consistent message, supported by school, community, and government policy, funding, and program implementation. Using education as a universal tool, drug use is preventable. In the U.S., history and research have shown that prevention efforts of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which focused on "responsible use," had little or no effect on deterring drug use. In many cases, these mixed messages appear to have caused drug use to increase. When communicating about alcohol and other drugs, it is crucial for the terminology of professionals in the field to be both clear and consistent and include the "no-use" message to children and adolescents.

In the early 1980s, using the U.S. failures of the 1970s as a catalyst for change, researchers began to develop curriculums that included both information and skills building. A variety of programs incorporated this approach. Later, some programs added media, parent, and community components and achieved positive, sustained results. Research in the late 1980s indicated that U.S. school curricula were best at increasing youth knowledge about the harmful consequences of drug use, but attitudes about drug use were more resistant to change. The annual National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) study by the University of Michigan, "Monitoring the Future," has indicated that rates of youth drug use are correlated with their perception of the risk of drug use and with their perception of whether peers approve of drug use. Beginning in 1992, both perception of risk and disapproval of use began to decline, and a sudden rise in drug use took place.

In the U.S., beginning with the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of 1986, both policy and funding centered on the harmfulness of drugs and the "no-use" message. Comprehensive school- and community-based programs were developed and implemented, and a national prevention strategy evolved.

In the 1990s, U.S. school-curriculum design has focused on programs that teach personal behavior skills and information. Additionally, studies on drug-education curricula have generally concluded that the best programs combine school curricula with a comprehensive community approach that includes parents, community programs, and media. Thus, a comprehensive school and community effort, which recognizes that all students are at risk for drug use, is most effective.

The uniting theme of successful school and community prevention efforts is that alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use is NOT the norm for adolescents, is NOT glamorous, and is NOT supported by other youth or adults. Continued universal support for a comprehensive "no-use" policy and approach to education sends a clear social message that drug use is dangerous, unhealthy, and illegal.

A review of several large-scale meta-analyses of prevention programming funded by the U. S. government in the 1990s has shown some general principles for positive outcome. NIDA has published a list of prevention principles for school-based programs, and the U.S. Department of Education's Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program has adopted its "Principles of Effectiveness." In summary, they encompass the following:

Programs should be comprehensive in nature and reach all children, pre-kindergarten through high school.

§ Programs should:

· provide good factual drug information

· be research based

· be intensive with follow-up and booster lessons

· use a variety of age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate strategies

· be relevant; teach social competence and culturally relevant resistance skills

· inform young people of the drug laws and legal consequences of drug use

· promote anti-drug social norms

· promote positive peer influence

· promote pro-social bonding to school and community

· contain multiple intervention strategies

· provide adequate staff and parent training

· include parent and community components

§ Programs should be supported by appropriate policy.

§ Programs should have measurable goals and objectives, and program changes should be based on evaluation outcomes.

Additionally, research indicates that most effective programs involve a school/community partnership, with shared leadership and responsibility, and are built on a commitment to a long-term "cradle-to-the-grave" education and prevention effort.

Many educators have some appreciation of drug education, but few are currently aware that school-based programs should provide continuing drug prevention education for all students and staff that includes:

§ Primary Prevention (no first use)
—a pre-k through grade 12 curriculum that teaches both information and skills
—policies and procedures for alcohol, tobacco, and drugs (ATOD) for all pre-k through grade 12 students, staff, and volunteers
—an emphasis on making ATOD use clearly undesirable, unpopular, and not glamorous

§ skills for recognizing media glamorization of ATOD use

§ Secondary Prevention (early intervention):
—a Student Assistance Program (SAP) and
—an Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

§ Tertiary Prevention (follow-up and aftercare):
—designated aftercare groups at school for recovering youth

§ Educators and community representatives often are not aware that the following "red flags" are important indications of sub-standard practices in drug education:

§ Trivialization of drug prevention.

§ Use of inappropriate guest speakers. Recovering users are not appropriate speakers for elementary school students. When using recovering speakers for older students, care should be taken that their drug-using history emphasizes the loss and pain and does not glorify their past and drug use, i.e., no "junkie pride."

§ Engaging in self-disclosure.

§ Grouping together violent or drug-using students.

§ Unwittingly teaching how to use drugs under the guise of informing about drugs, e.g., demonstrations of drugs and related paraphernalia.

§ Sensationalizing the drug and violence epidemic.

§ Expecting students to report incidents with no assurance of support.

Rationale:

State-of-the-art drug education with a clear no-use message is a moral imperative for children and youth from any of three perspectives:

· the best interests of society

· the best interests of parents

· the best interests of children

Society as a whole has allowed the development of the current "mixed-message" environment, in which alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs are promoted by powerful interest groups. It is in society's best interest to lower youth drug use through a combination of effective education and support for anti-drug norms.

Parents can exert considerable influence at home, but they are more effective if their drug-free message is supported in schools and in other important institutions that influence youth. The media, in particular, is a powerful force for either promoting the drug-free message or giving misinformation that masks the reality of negative drug effects. Most parents want drug-free youth, but they cannot achieve this alone.

Children absolutely deserve the best drug education that we can provide. Although education alone is not sufficient to ensure they will not use drugs, to fail to provide drug education in our current society (with its ambivalent attitude about drug use) would be an act of extreme negligence.

References: Education

Bangert-Drowns, R. L. (1988). The Effects of School-Based Substance Abuse Education - a Meta-Analysis. Journal of Drug Education. 18, 243-264.

Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) Editorial Guidelines, 6/94.

Donaldson, S. I., Graham, J.W., and Hansen, W.B. Testing the Generalization of Intervening Mechanism Theories: Understanding the Effects of Adolescent Drug Use Prevention Interventions. Journal of Behavior Medicine 17(2): 195-216, 1994.

DuPont, Robert L. The Environment of Addiction - Real Demand Reduction. The Second Annual John P. McGovern Award Lecture on Addiction and Society, American Society of Addiction Medicine. May 1, 1999.

Nation, Maury; Crusto, Cindy; Kumpfer, Karol; Wandersman, Abraham; Seybolt, Diana; Morrissey-Kane, Erin; Davino, Katrina. What Works in Prevention: Principles of Effective Prevention Programs. Draft 6/29/98.

National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). Preventing Drug Use Among Children and Adolescents, National Institute of Health, 1997. NIDA cost analysis.

Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), National Drug Strategy, 1999.

Pentz, M.A. The School-Community Interface in Comprehensive School Health Education. In: Stansfield, S., ed. 1990 Institute of Medicine Annual Report, Committee of Comprehensive School Health Programs. Institute of Medicine, Washington, D.C. National Academy Press, 1995.

Pentz, M.A., Dwyer, J.H., MacKinnon, D.P., Flay, B.R., Hansen, W.B., Wang, E.Y., and Johnson, C.A. A Multi-Community Trial for Primary Prevention of Adolescent Drug Abuse: Effects on Drug Use Prevalence, Journal of the American Medical Association 261: 3259-3266; 1989.

Scattergood, Phyllis; Dash, Kimberly; Epstein, Joel; Adler, Melanie; Applying Effective Strategies to Prevent or Reduce Substance Abuse, Violence, and Disruptive Behavior Among Youth, Education Development Center, Inc., New England Comprehensive Assistance Center, Draft June 7, 1998. Swisher, 1974.

Texas Education Agency. Texas Prevention Curriculum Guide: Drug and Violence Education, September 1997.

The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. Monitoring the Future Study, 1998

U.S. Department of Education, Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Program. The Four Principles of Effectiveness, Federal Register, 29902-29906, June 1, 1998.

(August 1999)

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