Drug Education Falls Short

In response to rising teen drug use and as part of his new and improved, "get tough" policy, President Clinton has stressed drug education as a key element of his war on drugs. As a sociologist and the mother of two teen-agers, I, too, have been concerned about drug educa-tion.

As do most parents, I wish "the drug thing" would somehow magically disappear, that my children would simply abstain from all intoxicating substances. This wish, of course, is a fantasy. I continue to hope, however, that my children do not fall into the trap of a heroin addict I interviewed nearly 20 years ago.

She was a "nice Jewish girl" who came from a middle class suburb. I asked how she had ended up addicted to heroin and in jail. She told me, "When I was in high school they had these so-called drug education classes. They told us if we used heroin we would become addicted. They told us if we used marijuana we would become addicted.

"Well, we all tried marijuana and found we did not become addicted, so we figured the entire message was b.s. So then I went ahead and tried heroin, got strung out, and here I am."

Drug education programs of the 1960's were designed to frighten kids out of using heroin, marijuana, LSD and methamphetamine. With the exception of government programs of the early 1970s that encouraged children to learn all they could about drugs in order to be able to make their own decisions, drug education from the late 1970s to the present has stressed prevention through resistance techniques (just say no).

Although millions of tax dollars have been spent on drug education, government surveys indicated more rather than less drug use among teenagers.

Most drug education programs are based on questionable assumptions.

First, drug education programs have, as their underlying premise, the goal of complete abstinence from all illegal drugs.

The expectation that American adolescents, who are bombarded daily with messages to take some substance for pain relief, sleeplessness, sleepiness, depression, appetite suppression, etc., will be inoculated from experimentation with legal or illegal drugs is unreal.

Second, many programs define anything other than one-time experimentation as abuse. Although few programs acknowledge that responsible use is possible, students who have observed others or had first-hand experience that did not result in abuse discount the entire program.

A third assumption is that alcohol and cigarettes are "stepping stones" to the illegal drugs, and marijuana will be the gateway to "harder" drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Government surveys show no evidence that one drug leads to another, and that the vast majority of teen-agers who use marijuana do not go on to use any other illegal drug. Teenagers who have known marijuana-only experimenters tend to discount the rest of the information contained in the program.

The fourth premise of drug education is that if children fully understood the risks of drugs, they would abstain. It is the job of teachers to use any means, even deceit, to deter them. When given wholly negative messages, students often wonder, "If drugs are so bad, why would people want to use them at all?"

FinalJy, most programs are predicted on the notion that. t.eenagers have little to contribute to their own drug drug education. Although they are taught decision-making skills for resistance to drug use, students are not a1Jowed the option of making their own decisions about whether or not to experiment, When teen-agers are outside the classroom and the watchful eye of parents, they actually do make their own decisions and often do a good job of it.

What teen-agers really want out of drug education is honest, factual information that will help them to make their own decisions about drugs. If they opt to experiment, they want to know as much as they Can in order to avoid health problerns.

Instead of the doctrinaire approach to drugs that has characterized the last 30 years, perhaps we should capitalize on students' attention and interest and use drug education to teach them generally about physiology and health. In so doing, we might even do something to help young people minimize the dangers using legal and illegal drugs.

Marsha Rosenbaum is a medical sociologist and director of the San Francisco office of Drug Policy Alliance.