Marihuana: just say no again: the old failures of new and improved anti-drug education

Reason, Jan, 2004 by Renee Moilanen

The questions clearly are designed to elicit a complete rejection of drug use. Is it against the law? Yes, drugs are against the law. Therefore, you must reject them. Is it harmful? Yes, they can be harmful. Reject them. Would it disappoint my family or other adults? Yes, reject. There's no way to make any other decision. "If the only decision that's the right decision is the decision to say no, you've effectively cut off the discussion again," observes Marsha Rosenbaum, director of the West Coast office of the Drug Policy Alliance and author of Safety First: A Reality-Based Approach to Teens, Drugs, and Drug Education.

Another program praised by the Department of Education is Project ALERT, which it calls "exemplary." A series of anti-drug and anti-tobacco lessons used in about a fifth of the nation's 15,000 school districts, Project ALERT boasts that it "helps students build skills that will last a lifetime," including "how to identify the sources of pressure to use substances." "how to match specific resistance techniques with social pressures," "how to counter pro-drug arguments," and "how to say 'no' several different ways."

Eliminate the psychobabble, and Project ALERT's message is almost indistinguishable from that of the 1980s anti-drug programs that teachers now roundly scorn: Peer pressure is bad. Drugs are bad. Just say no.

In a room plastered with posters titled "Pressures" and "Ways to Say No." I join a class of Los Angeles middle schoolers in November 2002 as it breaks into small groups to plod through an anti-drug lesson from Project ALERT. The adolescents have just finished watching a video about smoking cigarettes featuring former teenaged smokers who say things like, "Life is too short. I'm not eager to die."

Each of the four groups is assigned a different question to answer: How can you help people quit? What's good about quitting? How do people quit? What gets people to quit?

There is little discussion. The kids know what the teacher expects. How can you help people quit? Tell them smoking is dumb. Don't hang out with them anymore.

When asked if she knows anyone who smokes, one girl nods.

Do you think any of this helps?

"No," she says without hesitation.

Why not?

The girl barely lifts her eyes from the paper, where she is decorating the "Smoking is dumb" and "Don't hang out with them anymore" list with bright red hearts. She shrugs. "Some people just don't care," she says.

The students are asked why they think kids use drugs.

They respond in unison, "Peer pressure"--the answer they know is expected. When asked to explain what this means, the students conjure up images of older kids has sling younger ones. "Sometimes they're your friends, but sometimes they're crazy people that come up and ask if you want some," one boy says, drawing on concepts that prevailed during the Just Say No era but have little basis in real life.

One boy defines peer pressure as other students "trying to force you, trying to convince you to do it. "When asked if he's ever experienced peer pressure, he shakes his head. He's waiting for a group of sinister strangers to thrust drugs in his face. Drug education apparently has not helped him realize that peer pressure is far subtler, like wearing the same clothes as your friends or sharing inside jokes. And the teachers, by continuing to portray peer pressure as a palpable evil, fail to protect their students from anything.