Drug Education or Drug Rehabilitation? What is the route to a drug-free UK?,I have been very fortunate to have been involved for a number of years now with a very effective drug-free drug rehabilitation program.,During that time with Narconon I have witnessed virtual miracles in terms of recovery and the restoration of the addict to a new life free of drugs. I have no hesitation in recommending that program to anyone with a drug problem.,But is the existence of a highly workable drug rehab program alone enough to bring the United Kingdom to the drug-free future we all hope will one day arrive?,I don’t think so. I say this because of the sheer numbers of people who now have a drug problem and the fact that people are falling into the trap of addition to or dependency on drugs (both illegal and legal) faster than even the very best of programs can get them off drugs again.,Getting people off drugs requires manpower and no small measure of dedication. It is considerably labor-intensive. The sheer scale of the drug problem in our country means that to get on top of the problem, the country’s drug rehab industry would have to be the biggest employer in the country and would probably dwarf General Motors.,And you would still have people becoming addicted to drugs at an accelerating rate. Focusing on rehabilitation alone is rather like working in A and E endlessly to save the lives of an interminable procession of road accident victims while neglecting to teach people to drive so they don’t have accidents in the first place.,In other words you have to couple effective rehabilitation with measures to ensure that less and less people can be seduced into taking drugs to begin with.,Combine those two things and you have the means by which the UK can become a drug-free country.,But how to you ensure people don’t get into trouble with drugs? Simply making drugs illegal hasn’t worked. Telling them to stop it hasn’t worked either. Nor have scare-mongering and horror stories, threats, disapproval, ridicule or disdain. The wonderful tactic of getting someone off one drug by getting them on another is just plain daft.,So what has worked? Is there any approach that has proved workable?,We are very fortunate in that we do have a highly effective method of drug education that works.,It is based in the very simple and tried and trusted principle that if you give children or adults the truth about drugs in a factual, non-authoritarian and un-sensationalistic way, you empower them with the knowledge – often for the first time – with which to make their own rational decisions about drugs.,In other words, you give them the straight dope (pardon the pun). You don’t slant or distort or sensationalize it, you simply supply them with knowledge as honestly and as straight as you know how.,When you do that, something remarkable starts to happen: they start to think with it and make their own rational decisions to simply skip the whole drugs thing.,The mind, like any computing machine, needs accurate data to work with. Feed it inaccurate or outright false data and it will come up with answers that are right so far as the data it has, but catastrophically wrong when it seeks to operate on that data in the business of survival of the organism.,Give someone the inaccurate data that “if it’s organic, it’s safe to eat” he’ll end putting poison ivy or acorns in his salad along with his naturally grown lettuce and make himself very ill or very dead.,But give them full and accurate data and they’ll decide of their own volition to skip the acorns and scoff the lettuce.,It is quite remarkable how little people really know about drugs, what they do and how they affect one’s mind and body and ultimately one’s ability to survive happily and well. And remarkable too how much false information is circulating. And this, apart from anything else is a terrible disservice to the young. We need to do better than that for the sake of our kids.,Equally remarkable is how well people, especially children, respond to being given the truth.,When the truth comes from a recovered addict who has been there, done it and got the t-shirt, kids really sit up and listen. They know the difference between someone who stands up there and lectures them with theory and someone who knows what he’s talking about and has lived the thing.,Narconon Drug Education UK provides such an effective program. Its team of recovered addicts dedicate themselves to bringing the truth about drugs to anyone who wants to know what it is – to train others in how to bring the truth about drugs to their fellow human beings.,The government, police and many reform groups would do well to learn how they do it and to that end Drug Ed will train anyone who wants to learn.,Their tried and tested, very specific approach to drug education works.,All the country needs is a lot more of it. Fast!
Drug Education – Arm the People with Knowledge
