23 Aug 2010
Drug Strategy Consultation
The Home Office has now launched a consultation period for the new Drug Strategy. Targeted organisations are invited to share their expertise and knowledge by submitting a consultation form. The consultation period ends 30 September 2010.
18 Aug 2010
Eric Carlin makes the case for a different approach to drug control
Eric, once of this parish, makes the case for reforming the government's approach to drug control.
Amongst the points he makes is an argument for making drug education compulsory:
But it seems to me that support to intervene early with evidence-based initiatives to prevent and reduce problematic drug use remains a low political priority. I have previously criticised the consensus reached by Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to abandon the last Government’s commitment to make drugs education compulsory in schools. It’s not all that it is needed but it could be a vital component which would help improve the quality and range of drugs education provision in schools. Young people themselves consistently ask for more and better drugs education, even where they have already begun experimenting with drugs. Although a...
16 Aug 2010
Children talking to ChildLine about parental alcohol and drug misuse
The NSPCC - a Drug Education Forum member - has published a report about the calls that Childline has received about drug and alcohol issues.
The report focuses on the drinking and drug use of the parents of callers to the helpline, pointing out how parental "alcohol and drug misuse seriously, and sometimes dangerously, impacts on children’s lives."
The charity had over 6,200 calls worried about parental drinking or drug use, this represented 4% of all the calls Childline received in 2008-09. Almost twice as many children were worried about drinking over drug use.
They also received about 3,000 calls where callers were counselled about their own drinking and a similar number of calls about where drug use was discussed.
“My mum drinks all the time and leaves me alone lots of times. I feel scared and lonely....
10 Aug 2010
Eighteen and celebrating: birthday cards and drinking culture
A paper in the Journal of Youth Studies takes a look at how birthday cards aimed at those turning 18 reflect on alcohol.
There's always going to be a bit of a 'chicken or egg' question about this piece of research from Ireland, but it's an interesting indicator of how drinking cultures are reinforced in subtle and not so subtle ways.
The authors found that 38% of the cards they looked at had a message that included alcohol consumption. They conclude:
Eighteenth birthday is a significant milestone in our society. Cards produced to mark this event draw on ambivalent attitudes to alcohol consumption and humour about incidents of excessive drinking. They portray excessive drinking as the acceptable norm for celebrating this event and may contribute to setting up or reinforcing expectations that intoxication is a desirable outcome for...
10 Aug 2010
The Prevalence of Evidence-based Drug Use Prevention Curricula in U.S. Middle Schools in 2008
As we've seen in the past take-up of what are considered to be evidence based drug prevention programmes in the US has been something that policy makers have had some interest in.
Given the increasing emphasis on reducing centralised approaches here in the UK, it may be something that we too could usefully think about.
This paper suggests that there has been some progress, but it seems like there's still some way to go. The authors say:
We estimate that the prevalence of evidence-based drug prevention curricula rose from 42.6% in 2005 to 46.9% in 2008, and that the prevalence of schools that used these curricula most frequently increased from 22.7% to 25.9% over this period. In addition, the proportion of schools using locally developed curricula also rose, from 17.6% to 28.1%.
04 Aug 2010
Girls Attitudes - Girlguiding UK
Girlguiding UK have been asking girls (not necessarily girl guides) about a range of things including questions about health and well being. The subsequent report says that for the 11 to 16 year old group:
When asked about the potentially harmful activities they had engaged in, 42 per cent had watched what they ate or cut down on certain foods to excess, 22 per cent had drunk so much alcohol that they had thrown up or lost control, and 20 per cent had smoked cigarettes. Overall, 84 per cent of 11- to 16-year-olds had experience of at least one of these issues.
Older girls (16-21) were more likely to have participated in risky behaviours with 58 per cent saying they had drunk to the point where they had thrown up or lost control. 40 per cent said they had smoked cigarettes and this rose to 64 per cent of girls who...
04 Aug 2010
Rebalancing the Licensing Act a consultation on empowering individuals, families and local communities to shape and determine local licensing
As mentioned previously on this blog the Home Office are consulting on how the licensing of the sale of alcohol should be reformed.
I've now had an opportunity to take a look at the paper in a little more detail and there are a number of areas which may be of interest to readers.
The philosophy that drives the thinking behind the reform proposals will be familiar from other statements that the government has been making; move responsibility to the local level and to the individual, and remove unnecessary bureaucracy from organisations. In this case they say:
Central Government will no longer be the primary driver for reducing and addressing the problems of alcohol-related crime and anti-social behaviour. Local authorities and local communities will have a greater say in what happens in their local area and individuals will become...
03 Aug 2010
Drug Deaths
The EMCDDA have a table with the number of deaths that are recorded as being as a result of drug use.
The UK's figures are significantly above any other country, Germany follows with about half the numbers that we currently record. But as the EMCDDA warn:
Absolute numbers from different countries are not directly comparable since differences remain in quality of recording methods.
So I've only visualised the trend in the UK, which doesn't make for happy reading.
03 Aug 2010
DrugScope's FundingWatch
Via Email:
I am writing to let you know about a new initiative DrugScope has launched this week. As the national membership organisation for the drug sector DrugScope is monitoring the impact on the drug and alcohol sector of new government policies and changes and cuts in spending.
These are very uncertain times. The Government has pledged to substantially reduce the public spending deficit by 2014. Specific cuts in spending were announced in the Emergency Budget in June; the Spending Review is expected to confirm spending reductions in some departments of 25 per cent or more.
The Government has pledged to increase spending on the NHS in real terms, but radical changes in the NHS are planned. The more information we have about what is happening to front line services and projects, the better placed we will be to represent our...
03 Aug 2010
ACPO’s Children and Young People’s Strategy 2010-2013
The Association of Chief Police Officers have just released their new Children & Young People Strategy 2010 - 2013 with their key objectives, strategies and framework for achieving their goals over the next three years.
Ian Macpherson writes in his introduction that most children and young people will at some point interact with the police service and therefore there is a need to ensure that the police force can interact with young people and children in an “effective, supportive and positive manner”. Avoiding and reducing the negative confrontations that do occur; not focusing on the minority of young people who offend which would lead to a demonisation of young people in general; and using enforcement wisely are some of the recommendations that he makes. The need to have measured and appropriate responses is...
02 Aug 2010
Permanent and fixed-term exclusions from secondary schools in England, 2008/09
Last week the Department for Education released the 2008/09 report for permanent and fixed term exclusions in England. This year 6.3% of permanent exclusions were recorded as being for drug or alcohol. This is a slight increase up from 5.9% last year.
We have mapped the data regionally to see the differences in the 9 English regions and this shows some interesting variations with Yorkshire and Humber recording the lowest number of exclusions for drugs or alcohol, a total of 20 permanent exclusions out of a total of 330. The highest number of permanent exclusions was in the North West where 70 permanent exclusions out of a total of 890 were due to drugs or alcohol. In percentage terms, London had the lowest proportion due to drugs or alcohol at 3.7% whilst the North East had the highest at 9.1% of all permanent exclusions.
We have...
Subscribe to the blog
Or by RSS:
Or bookmark:
Archive
August 2010July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
About this blog
This blog tries to pick up relevant media and research stories about drug education. It mainly focuses on information in England as this is the geographical remit for the Drug Education Forum. We welcome comments that are on topic.Categories
Recent Posts
- Drug Strategy Consultation
- Eric Carlin makes the case for a different approach to drug control
- Children talking to ChildLine about parental alcohol and drug misuse
- The Prevalence of Evidence-based Drug Use Prevention Curricula in U.S. Middle Schools in 2008
- Eighteen and celebrating: birthday cards and drinking culture
Most Viewed Posts
- Complacent over young people and drugs? Or just not playing to a tabloid agenda?
- Preventing Drug Use Among Children and Adolescents
- UK film censor takes softer view on drugs
- Seminar on Effective Drug Education - The Drug Education Navigation Tool
- Under the influence The damaging effect of alcohol marketing on young people