A seminar discussing the best strategy to tackle education in drug use in schools has been told the present method may be counterproductive.
Mr Willie Collins, co-ordinator of drug and alcohol services for the Southern Health Board, told the seminar in the Silver Springs Moran Hotel in Cork yesterday that talks given to students by past drug-users might cause the children to indulge in drug use.
"There is a lot of energy going into it, but the idea of people going into schools and telling their stories may in fact create an curiosity for the students," he said..
"This does not clarify the problem in their minds and may be counterproductive. What this seminar has heard is that a concerted effort must be made to devise an agreed policy where the subject is discussed and talked about in depth in the classroom by the teacher."
Mr Collins said he hoped the seminar would help to devise a framework to build a dynamic education system in schools.
Ms Liz Kiely, co-author of Drug Education - A Social and Evaluative Study, told the gathering a study in the late 1980s had traced the credibility problem to the "exaggerated demonisation of young people's drugs without adequate reference to scientific fact or to the negative aspects of 'respectable' adult drugs like alcohol and tobacco".