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  • AADD Moderators: swilow | Vagabond696

Drug Education... What Should We Do?

G

gliterbug

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 28, 2002
Messages
4
Hello Blue and Greenlighters.
Just a quick "hypothetical" question. Suppose you have access to $20000 which you have to use for some kind of education around dance drug use.
There are some limitations to this. It must target people over the age of 18 (ie not in schools) and (unfortunately) can't involve pill testing at parties (as yet). Infomation about pill testing would be ok, though.
So what we'd like to know is how would you spend this money, so that we can get the maximum benefit from this amount of money.
 
Just so happens that this is the amount you can get for Nescafe Big Break... so maybe it's not as hypothetical as it seems! ;)
Interesting question, I'll have a think and answer a bit later... :)
 
Don't go on an ecstasy documentary on 4 corners with the idea that what you say is going to help the community, more people watch it than you think - and your parents won't be happy ;)
 
lol at cammac...
anyways, umm i guess i'd have to think about this one. with the proviso of no pilltesting it limits my obvious choices. not that enlighten needs much in the way of extra funding at the moment, thanks to our close association with ChemSol. If we ever get the poltical go ahead for lab testing we'll probably need a shite-load more...
but as for non-pilltesting stuff... one thing that woulod be great to spend money on would be for the writing and printing of up to date information on the commonly used "club drugs". the printing itself wouldn't be too hard for us at enlighten to organise, it's just finding the time to do it. so i guess i'd say use at least some of the money to pay for wage for someone.
 
Well people at these events are going to take drugs anyways, i personally would use the money to promote harm minimisation, not declining use.
Once people have tried drugs, if they enjoyed it they will probably use again.
More information about neurotoxicity would be good, i mentioned that word to people @ a cheap 1902------ after 7pm on the night shottie sydney rave, and they had no idea what it meant, and some of them i know gurn week in week out or every 2 weeks. I dont care too much because it is not my brain but many of them dont really know exactly what they are doing
hmmmmmm
people need to be more educated really, thats all i can come up with
-funki-
 
I would love to see a drug information kit developed that would be given out to the media. It would include a CD with pictures, and a booklet of true information, actual street names, medical opinion, etc etc etc about drugs.
I am SO sick of seeing shock articles in the newspaper with a spoonful of peanut butter labelled 'meth' or 'yaba' or some crap. If they are going to spread information about drugs, I would rather it was accurate.
 
if i had that money i would try and make a pill that is legal, safe ETC.. and still give you the same affect as a XTC pill
i dont think its posable, but hey worth the thort :)
 
I would do a documentary about raves with a view on use of XTC.
Show how safe it can be through harm-minimisation, how anti-drug laws/scare tatactics could actually make this drug more dangerous due to education and testing stations not being more readily available due to governments funding anti-drug campains rather than harm-minimisation.
Also, you could portray that the raves are mostly safe peaceful places where people are just having fun.
I mean, parents are worried about their kids taking drugs, if they are so worried, and KNOW they aren't going to be able to really stop it, wouldn't they rather know that their child is able to take drugs atleast being well informed of what they are doing ? ...
kids safe = parents happy = less votes to ban drugs like XTC ..
just my .02c
 
^^^ didn't four corners do that? not that it would hurt to do another one, but they did cover a lot of that ground.
 
Education/facts/harm minimisation, targetting:
* Media
* Politicians
* Parents
* Users
Wishful thinking, as $20,000 doesn't buy much when it comes to public education - in fact very little at all.
So let's limit it to some sort of public relations campaign targetted at the media, on the basis that the media have the most power to inform the other groups.
It would have to be limited to making one or two points very strongly, with follow-up over a set period. (I can't think what those points should be right now - now there's a challenge.)
Perhaps publicity about the social benefits of raves/dance parties, a few personal growth stories, leading into the wonderful work done by Enlighten...
Bear in mind that harm minimisation is still controversial. Opposition will be encountered.
And on this sort of budget it's better to make a small point well rather than try to revolutionise the tabloid's views on drugs and fail hopelessly.
 
some really good responses but rather than have a project that will disappear once the money is gone how about thinking along the lines of sustainability. A project that will cause behaviour change within the target group and therfore becomes a social norm that gets passed on from one peer group to the next without any formal structures involved to keep the messages going. Just a thought what do you think?
 
i personally would try to hold a confence with:
heads of state,
heads of medical organisations around australia
the prime minister
all of the harm reduction groups around australia
for reasons of getting together to discuss and educate people who may not have much of a clue about the drugs itself.
this was prevalent at the ama conference.....
and try to get a working agenda towords helping out the community rather than looking like your helping...
just my 2c
 
Hypothetically, if I was in charge of $20k disposable drug education dollars, I'd consider donating $10k to www.bluelight.ru and $10k to www.erowid.org ... These initiatives are already so strong and making big headway toward educating the web-using public about drugs and drug issues. At this stage the information exists ready and waiting to be found by interested people, so I guess the benefit is that people who look for the information can find it. However, I guess this is passive education - people have to seek the information.
BigTrancer :)
[ 30 July 2002: Message edited by: BigTrancer ]
 
I think that people (esp kids) need to know that drugs DO make you feel good (unlike the goverment's propaganda on evil drugs). People should know that the reason why drugs are being abused is that the user feels good while using, and worse after using. Hence the user uses more, completing the cycle. If we just use scare tactics and discuss the negative side effects of drugs, kids will try drugs, decide that the authorities know shit all about drugs, and ignore any valuable information from the authorities. (If any). That's what I did, anyway.
 
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