Report on the Misuse of Drugs in Primary Schools

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Report on the Misuse of Drugs in Primary Schools

Introduction

There is a misconception among the general populace that the misuse of drugs only exists among young people aged 16-25. It is believed that primary school children are too young to have been exposed to the world of controlled substances and their misuse. As a result of this, parents may be unaware that their actions can affect the actions of their children in future. Many children of primary school age are greatly influenced by the substances surrounding them every day. Perhaps a family member has a medical problem, someone is addicted to their medication, to other thrill-seeking substances or they smoke or drink. Even legal substance use can arguably influence a young child and other children they come into contact with. Sir Liam Donaldson claims in his report on alcohol consumption by children (2009, p.23) that, “Parental use of alcohol increases the likelihood that children will also consume alcohol.” If a child is likely to start drinking and/or smoking at an earlier stage because their environment exposes more of that legal substance, it is a logical assumption that the same is true for illegal substances. It is common knowledge that a pregnant mother who smokes, drinks alcohol or takes drugs creates a high likelihood that the unborn child will be born addicted to those substances. Although young children are no longer biologically linked to their mother in the same way, the same likelihood of addiction and experimentation is surely generated through nurture.


Issues

Despite misconceptions that all children of primary school age are too young to get involved in substance misuse, statistics indicate that “Primary school children as young as nine are part of more than 50,000 children picked up by police for possessing illegal substances every year.” (HANNAM,  2006). In another report on the knowledge and use of drugs and alcohol in primary school children by Queen’s University Belfast:

The researchers found that 31% of the children had been exposed to illegal drugs while 9% had actually been offered them. Cannabis was the most commonly used illegal drug and while around 6.5% of the sample had tried it, others thought it was legal and not harmful. (MCCRYSTAL, 2004)

This evidence clearly shows that young children do get involved with drugs and other substances. It also indicates that there is a significant lack of knowledge and understanding when it comes to substances that young children are more likely than anticipated to come into contact with. Evidently, drug education in primary schools does not achieve all it was intended for.

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This issue is increased by the lack of knowledge and the attitude of adults towards substance abuse within a child’s environment. An evaluation on parents knowledge of their child’s drug use carried out by Hermida et al (2003) found that “parents with children who consume drugs tend to strongly underestimate their children's use”. Parents are therefore unaware of the need to be mindful of the possibility of their children’s experimentation with drugs. Information from Great Olmond Street Hospital (2009) also states “by age 11, a third of children will have experimented with smoking.” These facts reveal the need for awareness ...

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