Drug Education News

You may remember the post we did on a review of drug education in Glasgow.
If that was of interest then there are two further documents to look at:
Drug & alcohol education consultancy service for mainstream secondary schools
This report describes and discusses the delivery and outcomes of an innovative project in which Glasgow City Council mainstream [...]

Another blog that looks like it will cover things that may interest us is Alcohol Policy UK.
I’ll stick a link in our Useful Website’s bit of the sidebar.

The Daily Mail explore changes in the law around serving alcohol as a result of the new Licensing Act. The story focuses on the unique case of a 12 year old boy, Chris Hardacre, who has passed the National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders from the British Innkeepers Institute:

Under the old law 16 [...]

Young People Now carries the story that DrugScope (a Drug Education Forum member) isn’t backing the call for cannabis to be reclassified:
Martin Barnes, chief executive of drugs information charity DrugScope, pledged its backing for the current law. “While more needs to be done to tackle cannabis use, there is no evidence that moving the drug [...]

The BBC are reporting some research on how pupils say they prefer to learn:
Pupils prefer active, practical learning with real-life connections and relevance, research studies suggest. They see it as a “passport” to further learning or work but do not want “too many facts”. However they like their progress to be measured by tests.
I [...]

Adfam and Grandparents Plus have a new report, Forgotten Families, looking at the experiences of grandparents who look after grandchildren whose parents misuse drugs and alcohol. They point out:
It is estimated that there are between 200,000 and 300,000 children in England and Wales where one or both parents have serious drug problems – 2-3% of [...]

The Times covers calls by the Magistrates Association to reclassify cannabis as a Class B drug. They believe that it is a significant factor in children committing crime:
the call for changes to the cannabis legislation came from 400 delegates at the annual conference of the Magistrates’ Association in Coventry. Roger Davy, a West Yorkshire [...]

The Guardian focuses on cocaine use in their story on some European research:

Cocaine use has also risen more than four times among 15 to 24-year-olds over the last 12 years. In England and Wales, almost 5% of young people have tried the drug in the past year.
The research was released by the centre in its [...]

The following are recommendations that NICE are consulting on at the moment as part of their work on Community-based interventions to reduce substance misuse among vulnerable and disadvantaged young people. You can see the whole paper here along with a response form and various papers which have informed the development of the guidance and [...]

The Friday Focus on DrugData Update takes a look at media coverage of Pete Doherty:
A quick search in LexisNexis’s extensive database of English language newspapers using the terms “Pete Doherty” and “drugs” returns too many hits for the system to display. Even narrowing the search to only “major mentions” returns a massive 1923 articles. The [...]