Interview with:
Professor Richard Midford, Curtin University of Technology (Western Australia)

Interview in Melbourne, July 2008

Is drug use an issue for young people?

It’s an interesting question, as to how much of an issue drug use is for young people, because I think it’s just part of, you know, the ... milieu in which they grow up in. I don’t think they give it a helluva lot of thought, but it’s a big issue for their parents and it’s a big issue for society.

You just have to look at the media ... to figure out, you know, that society in general is concerned about drug use by young people and then if you do look at the research on what concerns parents about their children, drug use generally comes near the top, if not number one in terms of the concerns.

So yes, it is ... an issue for young people because the people who have responsibility for young people – who care about young people – see it as a big issue; see it as a real danger for them.

What does the research show about drug use by young people?

I think it tells us a lot of things ... and it tells us things that sometimes are a bit counter-intuitive, and sometimes aren’t actually reflected in the media.

I think ... if you, if you look at media over the last few years, you would get the sense that, you know, drug use by young people is getting , you know, worse year by year ... and that they are more and more at risk, and if you look certainly not, maybe not so much recently, but certainly in the recent past, if you looked at the media, you would ... you would get a sense that illicit drug use is the big issue for young people, but the ... research evidence suggests that that’s not necessarily the case. The research evidence suggests that drug use by young people hasn’t got dramatically worse, and in some cases has actually got better ... and if you again look at the research evidence, the drug that causes most problems for young people is alcohol, it’s not illicit drugs.

What are the implications for drug education in schools?

I think what schools have got to do and ... what the material that they teach has really got to reflect the evidence. I think it’s easy to get caught up in the hype and to, you know, sort of put together lessons in schools about the drugs that keep ... making it into the media, keep making [on] the front page, and you probably woudn’t get a lot of opposition from parents or politicians on it, but I don’t know that you’d be doing a lot of good for the students.

So any drug education that’s done in schools really has to reflect the drugs that cause the most harm and are the most used by young people – alcohol first, tobacco, cannabis, and then the other illicit drugs.

What elements create an effective school drug education program?

Drug education has a long history, and I think it’s one of those ... prevention strategies that ... is intuitively right. People feel that if you can give people the right information about drugs, then they will see how dangerous they are and they won’t use. So, there’s a long history of people using drug education
to try and give young people the protection, I guess, when they get exposed to the possibilities of drug use.

And there‘ve been a lot of false starts with drug education; it hasn’t been a particularly successful ... intervention/prevention intervention, but along the way I think we’ve learnt a lot, and what I’ve tried to reflect in that chapter in that book is those ... learnings. Even if we can’t come up with this fabulous, you know, bulletproof, fail-safe drug education program that will save all kids from ever using drugs forever more, we do know that some drug education programs which contain certain elements are better than other drug education programs. And the two things that really have to be at the core of any drug education – are ... it’s got to be interactive [not interactivity]. Having a police officer stand up in front of a class of students and say, “Don’t do drugs!“ may feel good – maybe, you know, popular with politicians, but it doesn’t work. It’s got to be a discursive program where the issues that are relevant for the young people come out and are dealt with. The other thing is, people again come up with programs which they think would work; which they think are the right thing to do. So again, the police officer in front of the class saying, “Don’t do drugs!” or the ex-junkie coming into the classroom and saying, “Look what happened to me; isn’t it dreadful?” is not the way to go. You’ve got to base your program on what has been shown to work. So, rather than say, “oh it would be good, the kids would like an ex-junkie to come in and talk to them about not using heroin” – the evidence suggests that’s not the way to go. So you go to the programs that are proven to work best. So those are two really important elements – go for what works, and make it as interactive as possible. Those are really ‘top of the pops’ in terms of the elements that are likely to work.

On top of that there are other things which are, the evidence is on balance, supportive. May be the evidence isn’t as strong as for those two, but the evidence ... in terms of being ... of a program being comprehensive ... it’s all very well to do drug education in the classroom, but if you can support that by complementary messages and a complementary milieu in the whole school or even in the community as well, that reinforces what’s being taught in the classroom.

Other elements are ... that content is important. You’ve got to look at information in that drug education program which is relevant for young people.  And a really good example is: it’s all very well to talk about cirrhosis of the liver and saying, “If you drink really heavily for the next 20 years, you’re going to get cirrhosis of the liver.” It’s truth, it’s accurate, but it’s not that relevant for young people. So something like, you know, “have you thought about, if you go to a party and you want to get home how are you going to do that? Have you thought about whether you should make the decision about getting into a car where you know that the driver has been drinking – those sorts of things; they’re relevant, they’re practical. So, you know, content is important, and coverage is important, in the sense that there’s a certain minimum amount you’ve got to do for it to work. There has got to be a dose ... and the suggestion is that really about 10 lessons would be the minimum you would want to do, and then you need to follow that up, because as kids grow older, the issues that they confront are different, so that drinking and driving wouldn’t be so much of an issue may be for a drug education program for 12 and 13 year olds; a big issue for may be 17 year olds, that sort of thing.

And then, the final thing I talk about is ... the programs that seem to work best are based on social inoculation and social modelling. So it’s about looking at the social issues that are involved in convincing kids to use drugs and not to use drugs.

Should schools provide students with specific drug knowledge?

One of things that has come up recently in drug education is the issue of  ... resilience. You know, if young people are more resilient; they’re more able to resist the pressure to use drugs, and I don’t disagree with that – the evidence supports that.  But I think that’s a background factor. I think if a school connects the students to that school, if it does the things that build self-confidence and self-esteem and general social skills, etc. in kids, general social skills, etc., you couldn’t argue against that – but I think that’s background – that schools should be doing that and the benefits for the students will really be across a whole lot of areas. It will be in the area of education, in the area of ... crime ... you know, crime prevention, sort of connectedness in staying at school, relationships with others, and also in the area of drug use. If they’re more capable in their own right; if they’re more confident, and if they feel they belong in the setting ... they are not going to be tempted to sort of, to stray and get into, into other areas; you know –  they are not rebels; they’re part of the system – they feel that they belong in that system and value that belonging. So they’re not going to do those things that sort of jeopardise that to a certain extent. But, I think drug education needs to go further than that.  Because, if you think about it ... when they ... all young people will get – will be presented with the opportunity to use drugs, and they’ve really got to be prepared for that. And that’s what drug education, I think, can do. It can raise the issues that they are likely to confront and it can develop the skills in them so that when they do confront them, they’re prepared!