Drug Education News

The Telegraph are reporting the posible marketing of “Kids Beer” in the UK:
Kids’ Beer, a non-alcoholic drink from Japan which tastes similar to cola, is expected to arrive in shops in Britain soon. It is sold in brown glass bottles and has a frothy, lager-like head when poured. The labels, which depict cartoon characters, carry [...]

DrugScope have a briefing paper on Ketamine that you can download from here.

The Department of Health have published their annual report on smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England for the last year.
You can download copies from here.

The BMJ have published a new report on young people’s access to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. They summarise their findings as:

Young people in the United Kingdom can easily obtain cigarettes and alcoholic drinks from a range of social and illicit commercial sources before they reach the legal minimum age for such purchases; many also [...]

The Australian National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction have produced research on the evidence for peer education delivering drug and alcohol education and some guidance on putting schemes into practice.
The full document (205 pages) can be found here.

Children Now quote DEF member organisation the National Children’s Bureau on the recent report from Ofsted on drug education in schools:

“NCB has welcomed the improvements to drug education in schools revealed in a report published by Ofsted on 21 July, but has highlighted gaps in the way the subject is taught and the issues it [...]

The BBC have reported that:
More than 60% of 14 to 17-year-olds in Cumbria drink alcohol illegally each week, according to research. The figures came from a survey of nearly 13,000 teenagers across the north-west of England about underage drinking habits. As a result, a two-month enforcement crackdown on the problem in the county started on [...]

The Unitied States National Institute on Drug Abuse has produced a second edition of their booklet “Preventing Drug Abuse among Children and Adolescents”.
You can either download a summary document or the full report. I’d just say that the briefer document is still 58 pages long.
They say:
It [the report] presents the updated prevention principles, [...]

The BBC have run a story about an initiative being run in Oxfordshire:

A new campaign informing people about safe sex and the dangers of drug abuse and binge-drinking is set to get under way in Oxfordshire.
Educational roadshows touring Banbury and Bicester will provide residents with a chance to discuss their concerns about the issues [...]

Dear Sir,
Yesterday’s report from Ofsted offers some very useful insights into the issues that drug education should address. While most young people don’t take drugs they need to be able to know what would happen to them if they did and to be able to develop the skills and attitudes that will keep them [...]