Pubdate: Fri, 30 Sep 2005
Source: Tri-Valley Herald  (Pleasanton, CA)
Copyright: 2005 ANG Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/742
Author: Josh Richman, Staff Writer
Cited: Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org
Cited: Beyond Zero Tolerance http://www.safety1st.org/beyondzerotolerance.html
Cited: UpFront http://www.upfrontprograms.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?135 (Drug Education)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?214 (Drug Policy Alliance)

OAKLAND HIGH HELPS CRAFT DRUG REFORM

National Advocates Say a New Method May Have More of an Effect

A new strategy that national drug-policy reform advocates say is a 
better means of keeping teenagers off drugs is partly based on a 
program used for years at Oakland High School.

The Drug Policy Alliance on Thursday unveiled "Beyond Zero 
Tolerance," a booklet providing a blueprint for overhauling how 
schools address teen drug use.

"Zero tolerance is the ideological basis for the practices we want to 
change -- it's the mantra of the drug war as we know it, and it 
applies to education as much as it does to law enforcement," said 
booklet author Rodney Skager, professor emeritus of education at the 
University of California, Los Angeles.

In the booklet, Skager writes that he was first introduced to the 
concept of "interactive drug education" by Charles Ries, who runs the 
UpFront drug program now in its eighth year at Oakland High School. 
Ries also was on Thursday's conference call unveiling the strategy.

"Essentially, our philosophy is that we create safe environments in 
which students can discuss their feelings about their using, their 
friends using, their families using or not using," he said.

"They're hungry for a place to come and do this ...and they're far 
more likely to speak up when they need help."

The idea of "inoculating" children against future drug use with 
elementary-school programs -- such as the police-based Drug Abuse 
Resistance Education, or DARE, or the science-based anti-drug 
curricula now available from the federal government -- is "highly 
unrealistic" and hasn't significantly affected youth drug use, Skager 
said. "Education doesn't work like injecting a vaccine or taking a pill."

Skager said anti-drug education should be focused in high schools 
where it's more relevant to children of the appropriate stage of 
mental and emotional development. And this education must be 
"interactive," he said, meaning it fosters a feeling of connection 
between students, teachers and the school.

Today's "zero tolerance" policies that threaten expulsion for drug 
use and boot users out of the classroom and onto the street only 
alienate students.

Threats must be replaced with "restorative practices" which teach 
kids the effects drugs have on them, their families and their peers, 
and which give support and aid to children who have already used 
drugs, Skager said.

UpFront's Web site says it achieves these goals through a 
seven-tiered program that's constantly evolving according to 
evaluations given by the hundreds of Oakland students and teachers 
passing through it each year.

It includes a series of five in-class workshops on drug topics; 
ongoing, periodic work by classroom groups; support groups, both 
voluntary and mandatory; individual counseling; peer facilitator and 
educator training, to bring certain students into the planning 
process; mandatory monthly education groups for children already 
using drugs, alcohol or tobacco; and input from community 
organizations such as residential drug-treatment programs and 
anti-violence groups.

See "Beyond Zero Tolerance" at 
http://www.safety1st.org/pdf/Beyond_Zero_Tolerance.pdf

For more on UpFront, see http://www.upfrontprograms.org
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake