Drug Education News

Last week I put the following question to the Education Minister, Lord Adonis, as part of his webchat on the Downing Street website:
Andrew Brown: I want ask a question about drug education and teacher training. The recent Pathways to Problems report from the ACMD suggested that there should be a fundamental review of drug education [...]

The DrugLink Blog takes has a piece about the use of intrusive surveillance on school pupils:
Many concerns have been raised about the surveillance society, an environment where citizens are increasingly presumed guilty until proven innocent. Much of this can be justified in trying to stay one step ahead of those seeking to wreak havoc. But [...]

The BBC have a story about pupils from Penzance:
Five pupils at a Cornish school needed hospital treatment after experimenting with a cocktail of medicines. The youngsters, from Mounts Bay School near Penzance, had taken the prescription tablets, mainly sleeping pills, into school with them on Wednesday. The Year Nine pupils had just completed [...]

The Conservative Party’s Social Justice Policy Group have produced a report, Breakdown Britain, which sets out their understanding of a number of social policy issues. This has been widely covered in the media, largely focusing on the role of the family.
There is a whole section on what they call Addicted Britain, which Kathy Gyngell, [...]

The BBC reports on a survey from YoungMinds:
Half of young people using cannabis suffer side effects such as paranoia and blackouts, a UK survey suggests.
More than 80% of the 727 young people in their teens and early 20s polled by YoungMinds had tried the drug - the vast majority before they were 18. [...]

As I mentioned the Education Minister Andrew Adonis is taking questions via the Downing Street website tomorrow. Here’s the question I’ve put forward:
I want ask a question about drug education and teacher training. The recent Pathways to Problems report from the ACMD suggested that there should be a fundamental review of drug education [...]

The BBC have been looking at the numbers of children excluded from school as a result of drink or drug issues:
Hundreds of pupils in the East Midlands have been suspended or expelled from school because of drink or drugs, the BBC has learned.
Figures obtained using the Freedom of Information Act showed 775 pupils [...]

I’ve been sent an email copy of a press release from Cancer Research UK which links smoking to having a boyfriend or girlfriend early in life.
Children who have a boyfriend or girlfriend in their pre-teen years are at least twice as likely to become smokers before leaving school according to a Cancer Research UK study [...]

The RAND Corporation have produced a report on The Evidence Base for the Classification of Drugs for the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology. Here’s what they say about drug education:

One of the key aims of the ten year drugs strategy launched in 1998(1) was to increase the education of Britain’s youth [...]

The Downing Street website has recently added the facility to create on-line petitions and there is one there asking for PSHE to be made a foundation subject.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) a foundation subject in all primary and secondary schools in England and Wales.

At the [...]