We recently met with Jon Heidt, a professor at UFV, who had some interesting perspectives on the issue of drugs in society.While Mr. Heidt is not involved with high schools, he did have a lot of very useful information on drugs in society and things he has seen personally. He agreed that a major reason that students use drugs is peer pressure, as their brains are still developing, and they are learning to experiment socially. After going over a few methods used elsewhere (dogs checking lockers, plain clothed police men) Mr. Heidt stated that education at both the elementary age, and again at the high school level is the best way to approach this issue. However he also said that we should be careful with the programs we use to educate students. Programs that use pictures and scenarios to scare students, or programs that lie to students about some of the effects are not reasonable. If a teenager were to discover that they were lied to about the effect of a drug, they would now consider all of the information they have been given as false, and the problem would become worse. Mr. Heidt furthered our knowledge on many of the drugs being used currently, and their effects, drugs such as alcohol, K2, spice and others. The interview was insightful and incredibly useful. -Katie
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AuthorsA group of three students who currently attend Wgss and are trying to find solutions to a relative issue within their school. ArchivesCategories |