ENDING THE PROHIBITION ON EDUCATION*

Geoff Munro, Australian Drug Foundation, Melbourne , Australia

*This article is based on a paper given at the 7th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm in Hobart in March 1996.

Although recent surveys of Australian secondary school students have found that illegal drug use is reaching historically high levels, schools remain unprepared to deal with the consequent challenges posed in the realms of the formal curriculum, school policy and student welfare. The problem is significant because secondary schools represent the one important social agency with a mandate to educate young people about drug use issues and the professional capacity to do so. This article provides a rationale for secondary schooling to address the prevalence of illegal drugs within the community, explains why schools find the task prob1cmatiF and discusses how schools might begin to contest the educational and social issues raised. Reference is made to the development of education resources about illegal drugs currently available.

When I first took an interest in drug education 10 years ago I was trained to advise teachers to approach drug education obliquely, without referring to drugs. The solution to preventing drug use and drug problems was thought to lie in raising self-esteem, teaching skills in decision making, clarifying values. To give young people information about drugs was regarded as being as culpable as supplying them with the drugs themselves. In an era of HIV and needle exchanges this may sound bizarre, but it was the orthodoxy of the time. The drug education literature was very bleak, fitted with tales of woe and failure.

American and British researchers told us drug education did not work: they found that drug education correlated with increased rates of drug taking; they concluded that educating students about drugs aroused their curiosity and desensitised them to the potential dangers (Wragg, 1987).

Even in those days it was conceded that the drug education programmes which failed were not always educationally sound or rigorous: legal drugs were ignored; illegal drugs and their users were demonised; the methods employed were naive and authoritarian. and the leaders, who were not necessarily trained teachers, often lacked credibility. In reality, these efforts more resembled propaganda than education.

Nevertheless they won for drug education a notoriety for facilitating drug use, and drug educators later argued the best contribution schools could make was not to talk to students about drugs at all (Tracey, 1980). A virtual prohibition on school-based drug education, especially on illegal drugs, was institutionalised by consensus among Australian educators and its effects continue to hamper our efforts. In March 1996, Mr Duncan Stalker of the Victorian Association of Secondary School Principals argued publicly against drug education on the grounds of its proven failure to stop drug usage (ABC Radio).

The taboo resulted in a reluctance by secondary schools to include drug education in the curriculum, and in particular to beware of issues related to illegal drugs. An accepted set of principles published recently by a national project bears the imprint: 'The emphasis of drug education programs should be on drug use likely to occur in the target group, and drug use which causes the most harm to the individual. and society' (Ballard et al., 1994). As the use of legal drugs always outweighs the illegal the implication is clear. Subsequently, the cause is satisfied by giving some attention to alcohol (often via drink driving concerns) and tobacco, both of which are the subject of public health campaigns and coincidentally are the substances least likely robe recognised as drugs by the public. No doubt there are exceptions, but drug education is generally not subject to the standard of professionalism reached in other areas. A statewide review in Victoria found it conducted in an 'ad hoc and uncoordinated' manner, and of a duration too short to be effective (Hawthorne et al., 1994.) In practice drug education can mean students taking part in discrete activities such as measuring the tar content of cigarettes, listening to visiting speakers (Alcoholics Anonymous, police etc.) or discussing drug issues and values. Hawthorne concluded that the position occupied by drug education in the curriculum was 'peripheral and vulnerable'.

This parlous condition is not confined to the Antipodes, for commentators in England assert that schools fail to address drugs in a systematic fashion (Burgessl 1992), policy guidelines restrict examples of drug use to alcohol and tobacco (Clements, 1993), and teachers prefer to call on 'untrained and under resourced' police officers to provide classroom instruction (Green, 1996).

Even avowed 'harm reduction' materials in Australia cannot provide teachers with guidance for teaching about illicit substances. Both Get Real: a Harm Minimisation Approach to Drug Education (Directorate of School Education, 1995), which is being distributed to Victorian schools, and DrugSense: a Harm Reduction Resource for Senior Secondary Students (Goldspink Lord et al., 1993), produced in New South Wales, concentrate classroom practice overwhelmingly on prescription drugs, analgesics, tobacco and alcohol, whilst illicit drugs (usually cannabis) are mentioned in passing. When resources are not able to demonstrate how teachers can address illegal drugs overtly we should not be surprised when schools follow their example. It is a sign that drug educators have found it hard to align their practice with the policy of harm minimisation, despite it being the centre piece of Australia's national drug strategy (Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, 1993). Again, this is not a unique phenomenon for Kay has noted the low numbers of educators attending the various International Conferences on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm, a tradition which continued in 1996 at Hobart (Kay, 1994).

This is not to deny that drug education is difficult. The appropriate response, however, is not to withdraw from educating young people about drugs, as the prohibition ordained, but to develop better programmes. We should use the past as a guide, not a roadblock. Whilst reported results are 'variable at best 'they are not uniformly negative: Coggans (Coggans et al., 1991) found that drug education could improve drug knowledge without leading to increased drug use, a result that confounded the fear which fuelled the original embargo. Other reviews have found that even limited efforts are capable of improving knowledge and changing attitudes (James and Carruthers, 1991) and altering subsequent behaviours (Tobler, 1986). Further, modern health educators have learned to set more sophisticated goals than the elimination of drug use which was envisioned by early drug educators: sometimes the concern will be in avoiding drug use; sometimes in the reduction of hazardous use; sometimes a reduction of use in hazardous settings. The specific aims will differ depending on the substance, the person, the environment and the circumstances (Rowling, 1995).

The prohibition may have been defensible as long as young people did not have access to illegal drugs, but their use, formerly the preserve of adults, has spilled downwards into the secondary school population. Recent data reveal historically high levels of illegal drug use in Australia. In 1992, 2 5 % of secondary students aged between 12 and 17 years surveyed in Victoria and New South Wales had used marijuana at least once, and 14% were regular users (Commonwealth Department of Human Services, and Health, 1994). Among senior students usage was even higher with 43%) of the Year I I cohort in Victoria having tried marijuana (Department of Health and Community Services, 1993). Usage of other illegal drugs was less common, though tried by a significant minority: 9% had used hallucinogens and 6% amphetamines. The figures indicate that a near majority of young people begin to use illegal drugs before they leave secondary school. A larger proportion must have access to them. Young people deserve to he fully informed and educated about drug use at the time when they are likely to encounter the m. Many hold false beliefs about drugs and drug practice that lead to unheeded risks and harmful outcomes. Owing to the prohibition, schools do not provide that assistance and if they do not educate young people, who will? The media, which today include the Internet, are awash in stories about drugs and the information purveyed is often inaccurate or one sided. Three years ago ecstasy was touted as the 'wonder love drug without side effects'; this year it is Prozac. Ketamine has just reached the attention of the mainstream, Australian press which has labelled it, helpfully, as the drug for the fashion conscious. Amidst this confusion schools are the one social agency with the capacity to ensure that students have access to reliable sources of information and opportunities to consider drug-related issues in a broad context.

Part of the schools' reluctance to respond is based on a fear of a public backlash, but counter pressures are emanating from sections of the public and policy makers. The death of Anna Wood after taking ecstasy in 1995 sparked an outpouring of public concern measured by a torrent of media articles: descriptions of designer drugs and rave parties jostled for space with interviews with rapturous users, worried parents, police, street workers, and education and health officials. A foundation named for the dead girl was established to raise funds for drug education in New South Wales. A similar outcry in Victoria at an apparent rise in heroin use, overt street trading, overdoses and deaths led the Premier to establish a Drug Advisory Council to investigate and to report on measures to curb illegal drug problems. The Council has already announced that it will recommend inter alia a bigger drug education effort within schools (Herald Sun, 1996).

That interim recommendation accords with the desire of some schools to respond more effectively to drug issues. When the Australian Drug Foundation (ADF) developed an intensive alcohol education programme for secondary schools five years ago it was inspired by a group of school principals who demanded assistance with the problem of binge drinking by young people outside school hours and jurisdiction, They saw it as the schools' responsibility to educate (Gillies and Stronach, 1995). A similar process is now beginning to occur over illegal drugs as increasing numbers of leaders among teachers and administrators understand that many students have access to or are using a variety of illicit substances. As part of a long-term strategy the ADF has established the Centre for Youth Drug Studies to promote drug education and to conduct ongoing research into methods and models for use in secondary schools.

In order for schools to adopt constructive responses a number of tasks are indicated. One is to develop an understanding of harm minimisation which allows schools to educate students about illicit drugs. It is evident that schools will not accept a policy which means that they should only teach students to use drugs in a 'safer' or 'lower risk' manner. Cohen has decried the increased popularity of conventional drug education programmes (Life Education, Drug Abuse Resistance Education) in preference to the uncompromising harm reductionist approach enunciated in Taking Drugs Seriously (Cohen et al., 1996). 'Harm reduction' is an appropriate strategy in many circumstances but teachers, who are in loco parentis, also need to be able to include measures which aim to decrease or to delay drug use. My experience suggests that teachers find useful a notion of harm minimisation as a framework which ~ incorporates three broad strategies: ( 1 ) 'supply reduction' which seeks to limit access to drugs via legislation and regulation; (2) 'demand reduction' measures which seek to reduce interest in drug use through health promotion, education, alternatives and treatment programmes; and (3) 'harm reduction' measures which aim to reduce problems arising from drug use by ensuring that users have the appropriate understanding and information and the means to use as safely as possible. This framework allows schools to adopt a harm minimisation policy without the expectation that they must accept or condone drug use. It has the added advantage of describing how schools already work. Typically, for example, schools adopt supply reduction and demand reduction strategies for tobacco and cannabis but assume harm reduction approaches for pharmaceuticals and alcohol. Some maybe surprised to learn that they have been implementing harm minimisation all along! From an education perspective the advantage is that this model allows teachers to conduct a dialogue with students on matters related to the availability and use of illicit substances. They can begin to educate young people instead of leaving the matter to the media and the street.

I think the alcohol education programme developed by the ADF offers a template for educating young people about illegal drugs. It is a far cry from the discredited drug education of the past. Based on three years' consultation with 'whole school communities' it treats students, teachers and parents as partners in drug education. Overall it seeks to ensure that young people are equipped with the knowledge and personal and social skills required to negotiate situations involving alcohol, whether they drink or not. It provides accurate information about alcohol and its effects, it encourages students to explore their notions of the potential benefits and hazards of drinking, it encourages them to consider the context of use and the corresponding risks and it asks them to develop harm avoidance strategies they would feel comfortable in adopting and enacting. Published as Reducing the Risk: an alcohol action program for schools, the model has been adopted by hundreds of schools and by theRethinking Drinking project in Australia.

This model can be applied to inform the development of models for educating about illegal drug issues. Schools can aim to ensure the following: that students have a cognitive understanding of drug types, their actions and the ambiguity of effects; that effect can differ depending on personal metabolism; that they are not necessarily predictable on any occasion, but depend on dose, set and setting; that mixing drugs multiplies the effects and the unpredictability; that drug use always carries some risk; and that no drug use can be considered entirely safe. Schools can offer opportunities for young people to think about the potential benefits and costs of drug use, how they can reduce their exposure to drugs, how they can manage exposure successfully, and to understand the difference between higher risk and lower risk drug use which they can employ to inform any drug-related behaviour. They also need to be able to recognise a medical emergency in the case of an overdose and know how to give and gain appropriate assistance. Drug education is necessary for all students, because non-users as well as users can be affected, placed at risk or harmed by the drug behaviour of other people.

The task of translating these elements into educationally sound programmes lies ahead. Their precise nature will be mediated by the students' age, relative sophistication and their particular needs., however, programmes should be implemented in the middle years of secondary schooling, around Years 9 and 10. From that time, as young people gain increasing independence and unsupervised recreational time, their exposure to both legal and illicit drugs escalates, as does their drug use. Much of the existing advice for drug education holds good. Education about 'illicits' must be conducted 'non-sensationally' by trained teachers who have a good rapport with students and who can frame it within a broad context, following, or coinciding with, education about legal drugs.

If schools are to develop and deliver drug education they need to be supported by policy makers and the general community. They fear a loss of face if they discuss drugs with students because their clientele may believe the school has a drug problem. On the contrary, drug education should be regarded as a service schools provide to students on behalf of the whole community. If conducting drug education invited kudos rather than suspicion schools would ensure it was better represented in the broader curriculum. Parents can play a vital role in lobbying their schools to include education about drugs and to' request involvement in the process. In recent years schools have had success in initiating dialogue between parents and students on alcohol-related issues. It can lead to more open, honest communication about situations faced by young people and a joint commitment to implementing safer practices (Australian Drug Foundation, 1994). Involving parents in drug-education is one way schools win. community support for the task.

We need to explain to policy makers and funders the need for a long-term perspective. Drug education has a history of crisis-driven, short-term funding which demands immediate outcomes. It leads to a concentration on resource production rather than a development and testing of approaches; it fosters a loss of expertise and it produces a corporate amnesia. The Centre for Youth Drug Studies was established to provide a permanent base for sustained research in drug education and it is currently trialling methods for educating students around illegal drugs. Teachers will not, and should not, undertake the task unless they feel confident an] competent to do so and are equipped with tested models and methods.

There is no logical reason why we cannot develop constructive education about illicit drugs. As long as we are in a situation where drugs are not eliminated from our lives we owe young people that education and schools are uniquely placed to conduct it. The task poses many challenges: to learn from the past, and to conduct drug education in a professional manner. It must be based on careful planning, informed by reasonable and realistic goals and the findings of research, and implemented with adequate resources. Finally we must monitor and evaluate outcomes accurately and sensitively. In these ways we will make progress, but progress we must make. In our contemporary world it should no longer be possible to proscribe drug education for young people because we find it complex and difficult.

Geoff Munro, Manager, Education Programs, Australian Drug Foundation, PO Box 818, North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 305 1. Fax: 03 93 28 3008.

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