Pubdate: Wed, 03 Sep 2014
Source: Clinton News-Record (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 Clinton News-Record
Contact: http://www.clintonnewsrecord.com/letters
Website: http://www.clintonnewsrecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1725
Author: Tara Ostner

GOVERNMENTS SHOULD GOVERN, NOT EDUCATE

Recently Health Canada announced its plans for a $5-million 
advertising campaign to teach young people about the dangers of 
drugs. "The intent of the campaign," it says, "is educational and the 
material is based on evidence and science." Health Canada also 
invited the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the Canadian 
Medical Association and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons 
of Canada to co-brand and offer expert advice on the campaign.

Shortly after the campaign was unveiled, however, these three groups, 
representing a total of 80,000 Canadian doctors, pulled their support 
of the campaign. "We did not and do not, support or endorse any 
political messaging or political advertising on this issue," said a 
joint statement that was recently released.

The groups' main fear, of course, is that, coming from the 
government, the message that drugs are bad will become political in 
nature (and, therefore, contentious) and thus the focus will be taken 
off of where it's supposed to be, namely, educating youth so that 
they are well informed about the risks of taking drugs. Their fear 
is, I think, completely warranted.

If Health Canada's advertising campaign is grounded in science, why 
not just provide funding to non-partisan scientific and medical 
organizations to develop their own advertising campaign? The 
government's involvement just seems redundant.

Its involvement is also very costly. Does it really make sense to 
spend $5 million to tell people that drugs are bad when doctors, 
parents and teachers already do so for free and likely much more 
informatively? I doubt it and I think that someone would be 
hard-pressed to put forth an intelligent argument saying otherwise.

A young person's health should only concern himself, his doctor, his 
parents and perhaps his teachers anyway; between all of these 
important influences in a child's life, young people already know the 
ill effects of drugs; they certainly aren't going to take health 
advice from a politician over a doctor, for instance. Who really would?

I have never found paternalism attractive, especially from 
government, and the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the 
Canadian Medical Association and the Royal College of Physicians and 
Surgeons of Canada should be credited for stating the same.

If the goal behind the advertising campaign is education, which 
Health Canada claims it is, then I think that the campaign is a bust 
from the start. The government's role is to govern, not educate, and 
only bad things (sometimes very bad things) can result when it tries 
to do both. True education is, by definition, non-partisan and 
objective something which government, by definition, never is.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom