Drug Education News

The BMJ has a study of The Osbournes. The researchers explain the reason for the study by saying:
Because of its proliferation and popularity among young viewers, reality television is an important, but understudied, medium. We analysed the content of the first season of The Osbournes to determine the quantity, source, and slant of messages [...]

The Telegraph have a short story about the work of Clubs for Young People:
More than 400,000 young people in the United Kingdom will participate in activities at a national network of 3,500 different sporting clubs during the Christmas holidays. Most of the clubs are in less-than-affluent neighbourhoods of our inner-cities, sprawling suburbs and satellite towns.
Clubs [...]

The QCA have produced a set of reports on subject teaching including one on PHSE. The report has this to say about drug education as part of PHSE:
The MCA survey confirms Ofsted’s findings that the teaching of drug, alcohol and tobacco education has improved. From being seen as the most difficult area to teach [...]

24dash.com has a story about a joint operation between Southend-on-Sea Borough Council and Essex Police:
Open filming of drunken teens has been used in Southend in a bid to tackle underage drinking and anti-social behaviour.
The story goes on to describe the operation which:
has observed more than 40 youngsters under the age of 18 participating [...]

The BBC highlight a scheme being run in County Durham which is atempting to reduce the number of children smoking:
Children as young as 12 are to be given nicotine patches by health workers in an effort to help them stop smoking.
Pupils at all six secondary schools in Derwentside, County Durham, will be offered nicotine replacement [...]

The Independent has run a story on changing approaches to drug incidents in public schools:
A crisis over drug abuse in Britain’s top public schools has prompted the creation of rehabilitation and counselling schemes in a radical overhaul of ways of dealing with offending pupils.
The ditching of the schools’ so-called ‘zero tolerance’ approach is a stark [...]

The National Statistics Office have published the findings from the General Household Survey, as they pertain to smoking and alcohol, these are some of the findings:

Young people drank less frequently than older people. Eight per cent of men and five per cent of women aged 16 to 24 had drunk on five or more days [...]

The BBC have been out with trading standards officers in Dorset to follow an undercover opperation:
Two trading standards officers, Mike and Tim, and police licensing officer Karen O’Donnell are all in plain clothes when they meet for the briefing at Weymouth Police station.
Fifteen-year-old Kate is also there. She is one of trading standards most experienced [...]

The Guardian has a long article by Blake Morrison looking at the current debate about the health risks around cannabis. He quotes Zerrin Atakan, of the National Psychosis Unit, who says:

‘Quite a number of the patients who come to me have read or seen something in the media, or their parents have. But there’s so [...]

Young People Now report the view of Drugscope that young drug users could be accused of more serious offences under Government plans to standardise charges:
At present cases are dealt with individually, but the Home Office has written to stakeholders asking for views on the minimum quantity of drugs that a person can have if a [...]