Are you For or Against drug testing in schools?

As random drug testing in schools becomes more common place, so does the ongoing debate about what good it will do. The idea of random drug testing is not to catch out those using drugs, but to act as a deterrent to try and stop children and teenagers developing drug addictions in the first place. But is it working to alleviate peer pressure and to stop young people taking drugs or is it having an unforeseen negative effect which is making our younger popular feel like their schools are presuming they are using drugs until they prove otherwise?

Internet addiction is a clinical disease...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/3437769/China-offers-therapy-to-4-million-internet-addicts.html

The above links refers to an article published by the Telegraph.co.uk written concerning Internet addictions. Whilst the article refers mainly to the population of China it highlights the fact that as technology develops so it creates more avenues for addiction problems to manifest themselves – without the Internet there would be no Internet addiction, but that would not necessarily dictate that those 4 million people in China (and everyone throughout the world that has an Internet addiction) would be free from any addiction problems? As far as this article suggests, the classification for such a problem as an Internet addiction involves an analysis of time spent on the Internet and physiological reactions, whilst hard to define the problem is evident. We need to be aware and make it a priority to educate the masses about the wide spread problem of addictions – regardless of whether it is modern technology or substance abuse that is the latest example to highlight the problem.

Drugs are bad for kids, rather than bad kids do drugs...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4958885.ece

The above link to an article written in the Times Online refers to the chicken and the egg scenario - do drugs make kids lives bad or do bad kids use drugs - this article suggests that scientists have determined that drugs are bad for kids, rather than bad kids do drugs.

"Early drinking and drug-taking raise the future risk of addiction, teenage pregnancy, failure at school, sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) and crime, independently of other factors that might predispose to these outcomes, scientists have determined.|"

So, what is the answer? - how can we educate the young members of our society to stop them from experiencing all the negative events that are proven to be directly associated with drinking and taking drugs as young teenagers?

 

What is 'recovery'?

 

http://www.addictiontoday.org/addictiontoday/2008/09/defining-recove.html

The link above relates to an article addressing the way we define recovery.  The key question, as highlighted by Addiction Today, is  "if today’s search for outcome statistics is to lead to clinical effectiveness and clinical cost-effectiveness, what definition will help us to measure outcomes, for both comparative purposes and to feedback into programme improvements? ".

How is recovery characterised, what impact does this have on treatment and will one definition ever be all encompassing?