Just Say No Again

The old failures of new and improved anti-drug education

Renee Moilanen from the January 2004 issue

(Page 5 of 5)

"If you really want to do it, you're going to do it," says another, even going so far as to advocate legalizing drugs. "We'd be so much more chill in the nation."

That may be, but saying so is untenable in the abstinence-only world of drug education. Gardner pulls back the debate. You can't legalize drugs, he tells the students, because they're harmful. "The ultimate message" of legalization, he says, "is it's OK to do drugs." And that, he implies, just isn't true.

In the end, meaningful drug education reform probably won't come from educators. It will have to come from those who have far more at stake when it comes to drug use by teenagers: their parents. They are the ones who see their kids stumble home with bloodshot eyes, who can't fall asleep when their kids are partying the night away, who know their kids are experimenting with drugs and want, above all, for them to be safe.

That's why drug experts such as Safety First author Marsha Rosenbaum are calling for a truly new approach to drug education, one that abandons the abstinence-only message and gives kids the unbiased, factual information they need to stay safe, even if they choose to experiment. Such information could include now-forbidden advice on real but avoidable hazards such as driving under the influence, having sex when you're high, mixing alcohol with other depressants, and overheating while using Ecstasy.

One possible model is Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which recognized that if it couldn't stop young people from drinking, it could at least stop them from getting behind the wheel while intoxicated. MADD's efforts, which made designated driver a household term, seem to have worked: Since 1982, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the number of teenagers killed in drunk driving accidents has plunged 57 percent. MADD thus helped prove that we can make drug use safer without eliminating it entirely.

"There are kids who are not going to use drugs for religious reasons, because they're athletes, because they're focused on school, because they don't like the way they feel," Rosenbaum notes. "These kids don't need a program to tell them no. They're already not using. But for the kids who are amenable to the experience, it doesn't matter how many DARE programs they sit through; they're going to do it anyway....If we can't prevent drug use, what we can prevent is drug abuse and drug problems. But we have to get real."