cannabisnews.com: Keeping Kids Off Drugs 





Keeping Kids Off Drugs 
Posted by CN Staff on June 02, 2003 at 14:44:39 PT
By Marsha Rosenbaum
Source: San Francisco Chronicle 
The emotionally charged issue of keeping teenagers off drugs has prompted a variety of programs and policies. The problem is that we don't know whether they work. For more than 20 years we have carried on a huge experiment on our teenagers. Beginning in the early 1980s with Nancy Reagan's simplistic "just say no" mantra, we have tried persuasion, encouragement and scare tactics. We started by subjecting our kids to school-based prevention programs (such as DARE), and provocative (if ridiculous) commercials (such as the egg in the frying pan). 
Obviously, our teenagers did not stop using drugs. In fact, year after year, government studies have indicated that by the time they graduate from high school, half of American teenagers will have admitted trying an illegal drug and 8 of 10 will have used alcohol. Frustrated by our inability to get them to stop using drugs, we added threats and punishment to our repertoire. To show we meant business we instituted "zero tolerance" policies that included invasive and offensive procedures such as drug testing, sniffing dogs and locker searches. When caught, even for the silliest offense (such as the Maine high school student who brought Tylenol to school to alleviate menstrual cramps), students have been stigmatized, barred from extracurricular activities or expelled from school. As the mother of a teenager and a young adult, I wish we'd done the research before instituting these draconian policies. Marsha Rosenbaum, Ph.D., directs the Safety First project -- http://www.safety1st.org -- of the Drug Policy Alliance in San Francisco -- http://www.drugpolicy.org Snipped:  Complete Article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/06/02/ED105588.DTL Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Author: Marsha Rosenbaum, Ph.D.Published: Monday, June 2, 2003 Copyright: 2003 San Francisco Chronicle - Page B - 7 Contact: letters sfchronicle.comWebsite: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Related Articles:Beyond The Blackboard: DARE's Failure http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16022.shtml‘Just Say Know’ - Newsweek Magazinehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15973.shtmlThe Truth About D.A.R.E. http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15830.shtml 
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