Drug education: a primer

A review of the increasing literature describing various drug education efforts and programs suggests that few of the critical issues presented in this article have been considered in program planning and implementation. Second, research has demonstrated that although drug education programs can increase drug knowledge relatively easily, it is more difficult to modify attitudes; that is, changes in knowledge are not paralleled by changes in attitudes. Third, many, if not most, programs have been found to have no effect upon drug use. A number of programs have reported reduced drug use, while a few others have reported increased drug use. Fourth, there is no evidence that greater knowledge about drugs per se stimulates their use. The fact that drug users know more about drugs than nonusers doesn't mean that knowledge leads to use. It has been suggested (Stuart, 1974) that drug education might stimulate use by (1) providing students with facts that overcome beliefs which inhibit use, (2) changing attitudes that prevent use, (3) encouraging students to think of themselves as potential users by virtue of having been included in drug education programs, and (4) providing specific information which serves to facilitate the use of drugs. One should, of course, consider the obvious possibility that greater knowledge results from use rather than vice versa. Fifth, there appears to be little predictable relationship between values communicated by drug education programs, values held by recipients, value changes and drug use, or abstinence. The same can be said about behavioral styles. When one goes beyond the limitations of drug/drug user stereotypes--to include people and the almost unlimited types and number of available chemical substances which we must learn to adapt to and cope with--one is confronted by the reality that drug education, as currently designed and practiced, may be irrelevant to individual and group needs. Sixth, drug education appears to have little or no effect upon the increased availability of increasing numbers and types of powerful active chemical substance for more and more segments of the population. Drug education is at best a parallel phenomenon to chemical coping, which necessitates drug availability as well as the process of social pharmacology. Seventh, to date drug education has had no predictable effect upon either the mystification or demystification of drugs, drug use, drug users, or abstinence.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)