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Drug Education: An Abrogation of Professional Responsibility?
Author(s) -
Kraus J.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/j.1839-4655.1979.tb00640.x
Subject(s) - publicity , project commissioning , ideology , public relations , publishing , state (computer science) , drug , drug education , sociology , substance abuse , law , political science , psychology , medicine , pharmacology , psychiatry , politics , algorithm , computer science
Findings of research (conducted mainly by outsiders of the programs) have accumulated, which showed that the dissemination of drug knowledge not only does not prevent but could actually encourage drug experimentation by juveniles. Although a new ideology, which stresses education about ‘effective living’ instead of about drugs, has been propagated for a number of years now, its presumed prophylactic effects have yet to be demonstrated by its supporters. It is argued here that a continued reliance by professionals on empirically unvalidated educational programs, based on common sense and intuitive notions, constitutes an abrogation of professional responsibility; also, that at the present state of knowledge, the cutting off of drug supplies and possibly an attenuation of drug related publicity might be the only effective measures for primary and secondary prevention of drug abuse by children and juveniles.