Drug Education Can Be Scientific, Nonviolent
JUST SAY KNOW
JUST SAY KNOW: New Directions in Drug Education -- Conference in S.F. Next Week
This first-ever conference will take place Friday, October 29, 1999, 8:30am - 5:00pm, at the Golden Gate Club, Presidio of San Francisco, California, presented by The San Francisco Medical Society and The Lindesmith Center West.Since the 1960s, school-based drug prevention programs for adolescents have relied on falsified science, violence, scare tactics, zero tolerance, and "Just Say No." Last year the federal government spent $2.4 billion on prevention, and a new billion dollar campaign has recently been launched.
Still, by the time they graduate from high school, half of American teenagers will have used illegal drugs. Students often fail to take drug prevention programs seriously, doubting the validity of the information presented.
An Alternative -- Respect the Students' Intelligence
Many educators, health professionals, and parents are seeking alternatives that strongly promote abstinence while providing a fallback strategy of honest, science-based education for teenagers. This "Just Say Know" approach provides sound information as the basis for responsible decision-making, a reduction in drug abuse, and ultimately the promotion of safety.
For more information on the conference, visit http://www.lindesmith.org/news/semw.html on the web. For inquiries contact Ellen Komp at ekomp@earthlink.net, (415) 921-4987.
Safety First: Reality-Based Drug Education Booklet Published by The Lindesmith Center
Safety First: A Reality-Based Approach to Teens, Drugs and Drug Education, a booklet written by Dr. Marsha Rosenbaum and published by The Lindesmith Center, will be released at the October 29 conference, "Just Say Know: New Directions in Drug Education," in San Francisco.Dr. Rosenbaum, director of The Lindesmith Center-West, is a widely published expert on drug abuse. She is also the mother of a teen-aged son, and wrote Safety First for other parents as well as teachers and administrators. The 20-page pamphlet analyzes the current status of drug education and includes recommendations about how it could be improved. Also included is an open letter Rosenbaum wrote to her son about drugs, published last year in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The pamphlet can be found on the Lindesmith Center website at http://www.lindesmith.org/library/safetyfirst.pdf Included on the site is a list of reality-based drug education programs from around the world. Program providers may forward their information to tlc-west@ix.netcom.com.
Finally, a calm scientific approach. Taxpayers may save billions of dollars. What do you think? Share your recommendations with The Progress Report:
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