Narconon Drug Education
Narconon UK delivers drug education programmes nationally. For more information about our drug education programme please
see
www.narconon-drug-education.org.uk The Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention Programme:
Theory and Background
Illicit drug and alcohol use is a fact of life
in today’s society. To use or not to use such substances is a
decision which all young people must address for themselves at an
early age. Governments, schools and social programmes have attempted
to forestall such abusive behaviour by young people through school
and community based programmes as well as broad advertising
campaigns, taxation and law enforcement. Yet the continued presence
of substance abuse by youth in this country is unquestionable
testimony to the fact that we need to ado a more effective job for
the sake of our young people and the well-being of our society.
Despite the efforts and concerns of many and
the varied approaches utilized to address this issue – ranging from
abstinence to harm reduction – the fact remains that we need to make
our anti-abuse efforts more effective than they generally are today.
Narconon’s Drug Abuse Prevention Program is a supplemental program
designed to increase the effectiveness of existing anti-abuse
programs by providing substantive information which young people can
understand and utilize to make personal, informed decisions
regarding their use of such substances.
The Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention Program
provides a distinctive format for the presentation of information to
pre-adolescent and teenage students. Presenters are trained in a
flexible approach which engages students at their level of
understanding and conceptual ability. The goal is to present factual
information which students can and will use to decide for themselves
whether or not to use drugs and alcohol.
The program is
based on the proposition that when young people are provided with
accurate facts about drugs and alcohol and about the potential
impact of such substances on their physical, mental and emotional
health, they will reach their own informed decision concerning their
use or not of such substances. Starting from this premise, the
Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention Program has been refined through the
experience of presenters who have spoken with young people through
classroom and school presentations for more than three decades.
During this time the presentations have been made to more than
2,100,000 students in the United States, Europe, the Commonwealth of
Independent States, Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The program is
designed as a supplemental presentation to support the substance
abuse program that a school is using as its basic drug prevention
curriculum. Its presentation is designed to provide information
which is either lacking or not clearly presented in other alcohol,
tobacco and drug prevention formats.
The program,
although it involves lectures, is not a didactic approach. The high
degree of interaction which the presenter develops with the young
people is, in fact, a key feature of the program. This is a a point
which is stressed in the training of presenters as it is well
recognized that students must be interested and engaged for learning
to occur (Tobler & Stratton, 1977). Fundamental to Narconon Drug
Abuse Prevention is the understanding that the program's
effectiveness is dependent first upon engaging the cognitive
processes of the students. They must be interested and the delivery
process must be sufficiently interactive to ensure their engagement
with the materials. Even the most salient materials will lack impact
if no one is listening. Thus, presenters are trained to establish a
very personal rapport with the students and to maintain their
interest by focusing the presentation on their experiences, such as
what they have observed personally or seen in the drug use of
others. Without in any way glamorizing drug use, presenters in fact
do the opposite by discussing the actual long-term deleterious
effects of drug abuse. The presenter overtly or implicitly asks the
students to think about people and situations in their environment
or experience. The creation of a free and open atmosphere where
students can question and get their concerns answered is also a
vital part of the Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention Presentation.
Though this process, the student is brought forward to an
understanding that the material being discussed is relevant and
credible.
Information-based programs too often focus on
the negative. Scare tactics tend to be ignored by teenagers and
rendered null for younger children as their subsequent experience
proves the information to be overly simplistic - or even patently
false. Information as imparted in the Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention
Program is different. The presenter does not tell the student what
to do or not to do. The focus is on the actual mental and
physiological consequences of the substance use. The presenter
ensures that the students relate to the information being discussed,
encouraging them to examine it and compare it to their own
observations. The thrust of the program is to develop in the student
the ability to make his or her own informed decision. A lasting
impact will be achieved only when the student makes such an informed
decision and when the facts upon which that decision rests are ones
that the student will continue to hold true in the fact of his or
her subsequent experiences.
Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention presenters are
trained so that they can cogently present material regarding a wide
range of drugs. There is, however, no single presentation which is
unvaryingly followed, for three reasons, First, there are very
considerable differences in the cognitive skills of pre-teens and
those of teenagers. Second, there is likewise a great difference in
the awareness and experience of drugs between the two groups. And,
thirdly, students in classes of the same grade in different schools
or areas present very different problems and concerns. Thus, as the
presenter interacts with the students, the nature of their questions
and the level of their argumentation skills necessitate different
approaches for different groups.
The impact of drugs on the body and mind is at
the heart of the Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention Program. The program
presents that drugs are essentially toxic substances. It helps the
student understand that a drug might have both a positive and a
negative impact.
Presenters recognize that students have an
interest in illicit substances as a source of recreational enjoyment
(to "have fun" to "get high") or for a variety of other reasons. The
presenter must be able to help the students understand what they may
perceive to be positive effects of drug use and to encourage the
students' understanding of the costs associated with such short-tem
benefits.
The presents helps students understand the
impact of such illegal or illicit, abused substances. The presenter
also helps students to become more aware or appreciative of possible
long-term consequences of illicit drug use, including possible
negative effects from drugs which may remain stored in the body for
different periods of time. As the emphasis in all presentations is
on a high degree of interactivity with and among the students, the
level of sophistication of the presentation of this information
necessarily varies. The concern and effort in regard to such
materials is that the student needs to have an understanding of both
the short and long-term consequences of the use of illicit
substances.
From a continued monitoring of satisfaction
surveys, it appears that the achievement of this awareness in the
students is central to the effectiveness of the presentations.
Students who recognise that there are negative costs inherently
associated with the apparently positive features of drug use are
more able to evaluate for themselves whether or not to use drugs.
Moreover, this framework for understanding the costs and the
benefits of drugs enables them to view drug use in their environment
in a different manner. For example, they can see both the "high"
which their friend may obtain from ecstasy, and also the
difficulties that the friend experiences when the drug wears off.
From this perspective, they are less likely to consider only the
ostensibly attractive side of drug use.
Also fundamental to the program is its emphasis
on providing the student with accurate information to facilitate the
students' own decision-making process. The presenters are trained to
always answer questions honestly and in a manner that the student
understands. As students are frequently interested in the apparent
positive effects of drugs, the preliminary desirable physical or
emotional effects are often discussed, including what occurs that
appears to create that impact. But the presenter will also ensure
that the student understands the consequent detrimental effects of
the drug. The presenters never tell the students not to do drugs.
Rather they seek to provide the student with the information upon
which to make his or her own decision.
The program understands that single,
stand-alone presentations do not produce sufficient "dosage" of
information that it will likely be retained as long as it needs to
be. Therefore, the presentations are generally repeated at least
yearly and with more sophisticated data as the students mature.
Preliminary analyses of after-presentation
surveys have shown that students do understand this concept and find
it and the material presented concerning the effects of drugs to be
meaningful information upon which to base their future decisions
(Beckman, S.L. and Chapman, S.L., 1989).
The basic information which presenters use is
neither new nor controversial. It is taken from such sources as the
descriptions of illegal substances found on the websites of
organizations such as the National Institute of Drug Abuse, SAMHSA
and ONDCP as well as scientific studies of the disposition of drugs
and toxins in the body.
Presenters provide students with information on
the longer-term effects of drug use so that they can think with the
consequences of such actions. One such presentation element concerns
the retention in body tissues of certain drug metabolites and their
potential for interaction upon the individual at times after the
original use of the substance. This is a widely accepted fact
supported by a growing body of evidence from the scientific
community.
It is the view of the Narconon Drug Abuse
Prevention program that its presentations would poorly serve
students if it were to fail to alert them to these dangers, given
the evidence of adverse events and potential for long-lasting public
health issues. The message that drugs contaminate the body and that
this has consequences is essential for students to know.
Accordingly, they are given information that there is much evidence
that drugs store in body tissues and organs for a period of time and
one should this contemplate that what one puts in his body today may
not be gone tomorrow. Satisfaction surveys done after the
presentations show consistently that this message is understood and
considered by students to be important information which they had
not learned elsewhere.
In summary, the Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention
program is distinctive in its focus. It places emphasis upon the
presentation of factual material in an interactive manner which
takes into account the cognitive abilities and skill level of the
students. Its helps students make their own informed decisions
regarding drug and alcohol use. It does not utilize "scare tactics"
but rather addresses the issue of drugs and drug use from a rational
perspective encouraging students to fully consider the long term
consequences of their decisions, not just apparent momentary
benefits. The program seeks to provide students with information and
understandings which will enable them to make personal, informed
decisions not to use abusive substances.
The role of the Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention
Program is to supplement a school's alcohol, tobacco and other drug
curricula. It provides students with information that they can use
in thinking about such substances, which will provide them with a
factual understanding that will support their choices through the
years. It is our belief, founded upon satisfaction survey results,
post-presentation discussions with students and teachers and
follow-up contacts (including requests for subsequent presentations
and referrals to other schools) that Narconon Drug Abuse Prevention
presentations provide young people with needed information and
strengthen their decisions to avoid future substance abuse.
Respectfully,
Clarke R.N. Carr, CCDC (Certified Chemical
Dependency Counselor)
President Narconon International
Gary W. Smith, CCDC
Executive Director Narconon Arrowhead
For more information about our drug education programme and to
contact us please see
www.narconon-drug-education.org.uk
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