Posted by Tony Bylsma on March 14, 2011 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education | 
Obviously, Alcohol and Marijuana are both mind altering drugs. And obviously there are people who drink once in a while and people 
who smoke once in a while. So, is there a difference? Well, yes. And the difference is not small.
When a person has a drink at a party, or a beer at a ball game or picnic, their purpose for doing that is not necessarily to get drunk. If becoming ‘high’ is the goal, they won’t stop at one. Having a glass of wine with dinner is another example. One glass of wine is more like a food than a Drug. The reason for having it is most certainly for the taste or to enhance the food.
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on September 8, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education |
I was surprised to have someone in a parent group ask me if “Huffing” was still a problem in their school, especially since it was a Jr. High school.
Huffing is the intentional inhalation of breathable chemicals for the purpose of achieving a high. This is also called inhalant abuse, and has produced a long history of damages, ruined lives and deaths. It is almost always more prevalent in middle schools, grades 6-8.
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on July 23, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education |
Police and Moonshiner
I gave my usual answer, “They couldn’t make tobacco illegal if they wanted to. We don’t have enough police or a big enough army to enforce a law like that.” She and about thirty other faces kept looking at me; it was obvious, to them anyway, that wasn’t a satisfactory answer.
I said, “They tried to make alcohol illegal, back in the 1920s, and it didn’t work.”
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on July 19, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education |
A kid asked me in school today if he was going to become addicted to alcohol. I was a bit shaken by this question. I was in a very affluent area of South Pasadena and saw unusually few signs of drug abuse in the class. (Unusually few for a California public high school, anyway.)
I asked if he thought he was going have a drinking problem & he said yes, his father and uncles are heavy drinkers and his grandfather died of alcoholism.
It was pretty clear that the entire class was waiting for an answer and I wanted to not screw this one up.
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on March 1, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education |
In the past there have been problems that would run right through a generation. Sometimes it was a plague, an illness that brought a generation to it’s knees like polio. In other times, famine or wars that pulled families apart and sent towns or whole regions into exile.
These times were marked and remembered and from them we learned. The plagues of the middle ages were brought on largely because of a complete lack of hygiene. Eventually, the customs changed and bathing is now the norm. Cures or preventions were discovered for illnesses and some of them, small pox, for example, have faded into history. We learned, and the learning is what made the difference. Mankind rose above the ignorance and gained another step away from barbarism.
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who smoke once in a while. So, is there a difference? Well, yes. And the difference is not small.
