The world is still looking to Inoculate our youth 'against drugs'. Even if it were possible for a few adults to conceive of a better way to do so, the pretence that one can remove 'drivers to Drug use' confounds what is broken, and in particular where misuse occurs.
The problem of Gisbourne's Rotary initiative "not even once' is just a rebranded 'just say no' with its legacy of failure. Billions spent on it... but here we have the 'premise' that this programme is somehow different. It isn't.
The current President of this Rotary Chapter (and recently NZ Conservative Party list candidate #2) along with its 'connections' to business interests in 'employee testing' need a lesson from history, no matter what you call it, brand it, label it, it is prohibition 'belief' by any other name. Communitarians of the Gisborne West Rotary are foolish in the extreme for believing so, sillier indeed than the kids who are 'just doing it once'.
Evidence from the University of Otago's 'gold standard' Canterbury Health And Development Study shows that four out of five young people are doing it at least five times. And it is they who are appearing in the 94% of positive 'employee' cannabis tests.
The evidence they, these citizens of tomorrow are coming to harm (even if it was just once) is minimal. Clearly they are good at getting a job! Hence the evidence such education programs are misguided is robust. They are not just ineffectual, they are often dangerously counter productive. More often than not they lead to earlier and more harmful experimentation and are an identified impediment to (other) health promotion (NZ House of Representatives Health Select Committee 1998 and 2003). Rotary is creating the very problem they setting out to solve.
But this is what one comes to expect from folk who profit from the perpetuation of zero tolerance. Mr Murrell, of the New Zealand Drug Detection Agency admits as such when he declares "it is getting worse". Unfortunately his business model relies on it getting worse. If it was getting better he and many other ex-Policemen attracted to this company's mission statement would be out of a job. And Rotary Gisbourne would have better stories to tell.
The problem of Gisbourne's Rotary initiative "not even once' is just a rebranded 'just say no' with its legacy of failure. Billions spent on it... but here we have the 'premise' that this programme is somehow different. It isn't.
The current President of this Rotary Chapter (and recently NZ Conservative Party list candidate #2) along with its 'connections' to business interests in 'employee testing' need a lesson from history, no matter what you call it, brand it, label it, it is prohibition 'belief' by any other name. Communitarians of the Gisborne West Rotary are foolish in the extreme for believing so, sillier indeed than the kids who are 'just doing it once'.
Evidence from the University of Otago's 'gold standard' Canterbury Health And Development Study shows that four out of five young people are doing it at least five times. And it is they who are appearing in the 94% of positive 'employee' cannabis tests.
The evidence they, these citizens of tomorrow are coming to harm (even if it was just once) is minimal. Clearly they are good at getting a job! Hence the evidence such education programs are misguided is robust. They are not just ineffectual, they are often dangerously counter productive. More often than not they lead to earlier and more harmful experimentation and are an identified impediment to (other) health promotion (NZ House of Representatives Health Select Committee 1998 and 2003). Rotary is creating the very problem they setting out to solve.
But this is what one comes to expect from folk who profit from the perpetuation of zero tolerance. Mr Murrell, of the New Zealand Drug Detection Agency admits as such when he declares "it is getting worse". Unfortunately his business model relies on it getting worse. If it was getting better he and many other ex-Policemen attracted to this company's mission statement would be out of a job. And Rotary Gisbourne would have better stories to tell.
Blair Anderson,
Educators for Sensible Drug Policy
EFSDP.ORG
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