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Abstinence
approaches to drug education
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To download this position statement as a Word file, click
here.
Abstinence approaches
to drug education: A UKHRA position statement.
UKHRA is aware of
the use of abstinence approaches in some drug education and prevention
programmes, particularly in the United States. These have some similarities
to abstinence approaches to sex education with regard to their methodology,
assertions concerning effectiveness, and origins in what is essentially
a moralising view.
Such programmes:
- claim an abstinence
outcome as a result of their use;
- demand abstinence
- often by 'pledges' - by participants;
- see failure to
become or to remain abstinent as a failure of the individual and not
the approach, (which can result in the blaming and abandonment of such
individuals); and
- see abstinence
as an end in itself, not one approach amongst others.
UKHRA understands:
- that drug education
and drug prevention are not the same;
- that drug education
can contribute to drug prevention; and
- that the abstinence
approach to drug education and prevention assumes and allows one, and
only one, outcome
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UKHRA believes that
drug prevention is intended to prevent drug use from starting (primary
prevention) or to stop existing drug use from continuing (secondary prevention)
and that drug education should:
- be about providing
information and skills to support informed and autonomous decision making;
- inform and provide
opportunities for the exchange and discussion of knowledge, experiences,
attitudes and assumptions;
- raise knowledge
and awareness;
- contribute to
attitude changes towards drug use and drug users;
- promote critical
thinking;
- challenge normative
assumptions; and
- include discussion
of abstinence as one option and choice amongst many in substance-using
life-styles.
UKHRA believes that
abstinence programmes:
- displace or become
a substitute for genuine drug education programmes;
- are unrealistic
and dishonest - in methodology and claim - and do not meet the needs
of young people or others;
- are linked to
conformist and moralising approaches to young people, social and health
behaviours, drug use and drug users;
- discourage problem
drug users from acknowledging their situations and seeking help and
support from individuals, agencies and services; and
- worsen the problem
they claim to be able to prevent
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UKHRA recommends
that:
- education and
prevention are not confused or synonymised;
- although prevention
outcomes are a legitimate aim, they should not be used as an indication
of the success or failure of, drug education programmes;
- the present
general UK practice of providing pluralist coverage in education or
prevention work - including abstinence and harm minimisation - be maintained;
- government
agencies and departments do not demand abstinence outcomes from education
or prevention programmes; nor make such outcomes a condition of funding;
- all involved
in drug education recognise that existing evidence does not support
many of the claims of abstinence programmes.
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