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"Lies kill though. When you tell people that marijuana is more evil than it is, and they have friends who don't go blind, drop out of school, or whatever other lies they tell, then kids disbelieve ALL of the genuine harmful effects of harder drugs.

I truly don't understand why we think lying is an effective drug policy. Marijuana can impair some memory functions, make you sluggish, get fat, etc. But that isn't "scary" enough for some folks. So we embellish, and we lose the trust of the kids when we tell them what long term heroin, ecstacy use can do to them because they know already that we lie."

Good post. I'm a public defender in a small town and part of what I do is represent juveniles who get in trouble. If you can get these kids really talking you hear a lot of discounting just about everything negative about drugs as lies told to them by authority figures. The problem is that authority figures do lie to kids about drugs, or at least exaggerate like crazy, and that destroys credibility. If they can't believe what authority figures are telling them, they're likely to turn to the pro-drug nonsense their peers are telling them.

There is no need to exaggerate the negative aspects of drug use. The truth is bad enough. No, you won't get addicted the first time you try meth or any other drug, but the only way to be sure you'll never get addicted is to never try this stuff in the first place. Not everyone will get hooked, but a lot of people will and they certainly aren't always people who look or act like people you think might be the ones who get addicted. The fact is that you can't tell who will get addicted. No one thinks it will happen to them, or they wouldn't mess with the stuff. But it does happen to substantial numbers of people who mess with these substances and really screws up their lives. A lot of these people these kids know who are messing with drugs are already addicted or well on their way but it just hasn't become evident yet.

I'll see these drug addicts later when they come to me in trouble, often over and over again. I'll see them when they are kids feeling invincible thinking they'll never get hooked, and I'll see them later in life when they know good and well they are hooked and they're struggling with a lifelong addiction. a lot will eventually quit for good, but not before going through many backslides and an awful lot of trouble over the years. They ruin their lives, hurt people around them. They'll come in my office balling their eyes out because they can't leave it alone. They'll say all they need is help, but none of that works unless they make it work and most won't stick to it, at least not the first, or second, or even third time they get treatment. It's a very sad and frustrating thing to watch. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people really do well and thought they had were going to come out fine only to watch them fall back into it. It's extremely frustrating.

I think people are for the most part well intentioned when they try to scare kids away from drugs through exaggerations and even "little white lies." A lot who engage in this practice don't even know they are doing it because they are just parroting nonsense they get from others. I've seen police officers speaking to groups of kids about drugs going straight from materials from the prosecutor's office telling these kids things like that that 95% of them who try meth will get hooked the first time they try it, and that their life expectancy after they start messing with meth is only five years. This is such obvious bull$hit that these teens can see with their own eyes is false. I don't know for sure where the prosecutor's office gets all this crap, although I know a big part of it comes from the DEA who ought to know better. It irks me no end to see this happening because I know these kids are already suspicious of authority figures and when those authority figures feed them lines of obvious b.s. these kids just quit listening and turn to other sources for their information, which unfortunately often means their friends who will feed them full of pro-drug nonsense that is no more true that what the authority figures tell them.

The truth about drugs is bad enough, especially when it comes to the hard stuff. We have to stop with the lies and exaggerations because that tactic too often ends with exactly the opposite of the intended results.

Passive or direct drug pushing people kill or ruin lives though as they entice children and others into making it sound safe and attractive to get into recreational drugs.

The truth about drugs is bad enough, especially when it comes to the hard stuff.

Amen to that. Anyone who has an inkling to try heroin should be forced to watch the movie Sid and Nancy, or Trainspotting, and if they still want to shoot up after that, they should walk to the nearest bridge and jump off.

The truth about drugs is bad enough, especially when it comes to the hard stuff. We have to stop with the lies and exaggerations because that tactic too often ends with exactly the opposite of the intended results.

(applause!)

Thank you for your hard work and for plainly speaking the truth.

"I think people are for the most part well intentioned when they try to scare kids away from drugs through exaggerations and even 'little white lies.'"

Interesting post from the front lines.

This method of white lies is the way (IMHO) that most people have been parented for a long time. A glance at some of the children's literature from the 18th and 19th century will show that it is rife with all sorts of stuff meant to scare kids away from bad stuff in life. It's well-intentioned, no doubt, but some of it (like the children's story about the boy who ate too much sugar and turned into syrup) looks more than just a bit ridiculous today.

The dissemination of knowledge really started with public schools, where the kids would find out about all sorts of things from their schoolmates. That's really when kids started checking up on what their parents were telling them. Of course, I'm sure no one on FR ever did this in school. ;-)