edgarshade
Bluelighter
Scientific American
By Cassie Rodenberg | December 27, 2011
With reader comments
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http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...drug-education-advertises-more-than-it-helps/
By Cassie Rodenberg | December 27, 2011
With reader comments
Yesterday, I asked a 12-year-old the biggest lessons he learned from a recent middle school drug assembly. The answers I received contained the terms “White Lightning,” “Hurricane Charlie” and “Trail Mix.” While valuable for kids to have drug education programs in schools, it becomes a pressing concern when lesser known drugs and/or street names are the primary concepts gleaned from lessons. It’s worse, yet, when kids learn misbegotten ideas on the identity and usage of such drugs, such as the designer compounds commonly referred to as ‘bath salts.’ And here I thought marijuana and alcohol would be the key school drug assembly takeaways for the 11 to 14-year-old demographic.
We need to return to the science of what drugs actually do to our brains and bodies. This extreme brevity and methodology of glossing over key concepts inflicts more damage than it helps — kids enter the assembly knowing perhaps nothing and leave thinking the bath salts under mom’s sink make you act silly and see invisible spiders?
Worse, too, are news reports explaining the effects of ‘bath salts,’ revealing where you can buy the legal high in stores and displaying the products on the show, a horrifying form of well-intentioned press. As one YouTube viewer responded (and received thumbs’ up for), “woah! i gotta try that…thanks CBS”
More...
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...drug-education-advertises-more-than-it-helps/
