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STAND Lesson 3: Learn More About Alcohol And Drug Use And Drug Addiction

"Teens who learned about the risks of marijuana at home were half as likely to use the drug than teens who learned nothing."

-Partnership for a Drug Free America Tracking Study, 1995

 

TRY THIS! ACTIVITY
In teams or individually, invite students to select one of the following research questions and have students gather information to share with the class. Students could make a poster or graphic, write a news story, or make an oral presentation about their results. 

What Can You Uncover? 

  • Find out how many teens aged 15 - 20 were killed in alcohol related traffic accidents over the past five years. How many nationally? How many in your state? How many in your community? 
  • Gather news articles and interview people who knew a teen killed in an alcohol related traffic accident. How many people's lives were changed forever as a result of one teenager's death? 
  • Find out how many people in your community are involved in helping drug users to quit by locating organizations involved in drug treatment. 
  • Find out how many people in your community are involved in preventing the use of drugs by locating organizations involved in drug prevention. 
  • Find out how much money it costs to rent a billboard in your neighborhood for one month. Count the number of billboard ads in your community that have ads for alcohol and tobacco. 
  • Interview someone who is involved in drug treatment or prevention in your community and interview them about their work. What kinds of programs are offered? What motivates the people who do this work? What discourages them?
  • Locate examples of the popular songs, radio stations, TV programs, and internet sites which portray messages about drug use. What are the specific messages they're expressing? How many are positive and how many are negative?
  • Find out how many students in your school use drugs and alcohol. Find out how many teens in the nation use drugs and alcohol. Find out the correlations that exist between using alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs. 
  • Find out how parents and teens talk about drugs at home. Interview a sample of teens about the conversations they have with parents. Then interview a sample of parents about the conversations they have with children. 
  • Research the popular films which represent drug use, including Pulp Fiction, The Brady Bunch Movie, Dazed and Confused, and Trainspotting. What behaviors and emotions is drug use associated with in these films? How might different people interpret these films differently? 
  • Research the fashion industry's use of models who look like drug addicts ("heroin chic") by finding examples of this in magazines and reading newspaper and magazine articles about the phenomenon.