Fight Against Drugs (FAD): A Public Health Program Plan - Essay Example

Fight Against Drugs (FAD A Public Health Program Plan Introduction Fighting drug abuse has always been a grave concern in the recent years. Despitenumerous declarations of a "war on drugs" over the past decades, Americans continue to produce, use and sell illegal narcotics. Illegal drugs are both a symptom and a cause of some of American society's most intractable problems, including high crime rates, homelessness and juvenile delinquency. Not to mention, the government is spending millions of dollars to thwart America's drug problems (see Appendix A). According to National Survey on Drug Use and Health survey data that were released in 2003, an estimated 19.5 million Americans aged 12 and older were current users of illicit drugs in 2002, meaning that they used an illicit drug at least once during the 30 days prior to being interviewed. Marijuana, the most commonly used illicit drug in 2002, was used by 75% of those reporting drug use. Approximately 55% of illicit drug users consumed only marijuana, 20% used marijuana and another illicit drug, and the remaining 25% used an illicit drug but not marijuana in the past month. Hence, overall, about 45% of current illicit drug users in 2002 (an estimated 8.8 million Americans) were users of illicit drugs other than marijuana and hashish, with or without the use of marijuana (See Figure 1). Thus, explore America's drug culture is to examine the criminal justice system, the health care system, economic system and even the educational system. As in previous national NSDUH surveys, the 2002 survey found that substance-abuse rates remain highly correlated with educational status. Among young adults 18 years and older, those who have not completed high school have the highest rate of abuse (9.1%), whereas college graduates have the lowest rate of abuse (5.8%). This is despite the fact that adults who had completed four years of college were more likely to have tried illicit drugs in their lifetime than adults who had not completed high school (50.5% versus 37.1%). Hence, the more education a person receives, the more likely that person is to discontinue using drugs with age. Figure 1. Types of Drugs Used in the Past Month by Illicit Drug Users, Age 12 and Older, 2002. (Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2003). Especially the youths, it is a bleak reality that substance abuse is still heavily being practiced. Self-report surveys indicate that more than half of high school seniors have tried drugs and more than 90 percent use alcohol (Institute for Social Research, 16 December 2002). Adolescents at high risk for drug abuse often come from the most impoverished communities and experience a multitude of problems, including school failure and family conflict (Greenwood 1992, p. 445). Equally troubling is the association between drug use and crime (U.S. Department of Justice, 1989). Research indicates that more than half of all juvenile arrestees in some cities test positive for cocaine (National Institute of Justice, 2003).Self-report surveys show that drug abusers are more likely to become delinquents than are non-abusers (Mackesy-Amiti and Michael Fendrich, 1995). The pattern of drug use and crime makes juvenile substance abuse a key national concern. Former Senator John Chaffee once stated that, "Dropouts disappear from high school corridors, but they do not disappear from society. Rather, their names show up on the welfare rolls; they become drug abuse statistics, or they wind up in our overcrowded prison system. . . . The dropout exodus is increasing the number of those who live on the margin of society, while our social welfare costs and, too frequently, our penal institutions pay the costs". (Dorn, 1996, p. 127). Indeed, as Table 1 represents, there is still a steady growth of drug use among U.S. high school students. Table 1. Drug Use: America's High School Seniors, 1980-2004. (Source: Univ. of Michigan Inst. for Social Research and National Inst. on Drug Abuse). Dropping out of school could be a possible clue that a student is using drugs. It is important to note evidences that a student is doing drugs in order to help him or her during the earlier stages of addiction. This is because about two-thirds of substance-abusing youths continue to use drugs in adulthood, but about half desist from other criminal activities. Chaiken & Johnson (1988) deem that those who persist in both substance abuse and crime maintain these characteristics: They come from poor families. Other criminals are members of their families. They do poorly in school. They started using drugs and committing other delinquent acts at an early age. They use multiple types of drugs and commit crimes frequently. They have few opportunities in late adolescence to participate in legitimate and rewarding adult activities (p. 12). This is why this public health program will focus on youths in schools. Through systematic public information campaigns, activities, assessment and counselling, it is expected that we will contribute immensely in our advocacy to save our youths from drugs and encourage them to do well in schools for them to achieve their dreams and become self-actualized individuals in the future. Program Plan The public relations campaign against drugs will be dubbed as Fight Against Drugs (FAD). The program plans to disseminate information to all youths in high schools and colleges to the deleterious effects of drugs. Through various activities, workshops/seminars, peer group empowerment and counselling activities, the program is deemed to discourage them to use drugs, which has been a perennial problem of our society. Objectives 1. To have a massive youth information campaign against drug use 2. To provide self-empowerment strategies to youths in avoiding drug use 3. To find more productive activities for youths as alternative to being hooked on drugs 4. To establish an anti-drug advocacy in the campus Audience The target audience are the high school and college students who are the most prone to drug use and abuse. Problems of drug use have been constantly linked to the students' weak academic performance. In fact, delinquency in school has always been suspected to be one indicator that a student is doing drugs. Moreover, failure to complete high school has negative consequences for adolescents who bear this status and for societies that increasingly depend on an educated labor force. For decades, studies have consistently shown that high school dropouts are more likely to be unemployed than are high school graduates (Coalition for Juvenile Justice, 2001). Previous studies indicate that being a high school dropout is associated with the uptake of cigarette smoking (Johnson & Hoffmann, 2000), with a higher prevalence of alcohol and marijuana use (Chavez, Edwards, & Oetting, 1989), and with alcohol dependence (Crum, Helzer, & Anthony, 1993). Other research has shown that high school dropouts are more likely than are high school graduates to engage in injection drug use (Obot & Anthony, 1999). One study has focused exclusively on the relationship between dropping out of high school and drug use, and it found that dropouts' dissatisfactions with school completely mediated the relationship between these two variables (Krohn, Thornberry, Collins-Hall, & Lizotte, 1995). Another study suggested that teenage drug abuse sharply reduces the scholastic attainments of those affected. One-third of all our respondents never completed high school, 58% finished high school or had obtained their G.E.D. equivalencies, and only 9% had undertaken some college course work (Feigelman, 1990, p. 54). Antecedents to dropout status also play a significant role in this study because some evidence indicates that drug use is a significant predictor of dropping out of high school (Ellickson, Bui, Bell, & McGuigan, 1998). In addition, prior research has found that weak attachments to school and dissatisfaction with the school experience explain the dropout-drug use relationship (Krohn et al., 1995). Moreover, according to Elliott, Huizinga & Ageton (1985), both drug use and delinquency seem to reflect developmental problems; they are both part of a disturbed lifestyle. This research reveals some important associations between substance abuse and delinquency: 1. Alcohol abuse seems to be a cause of marijuana and other drug abuse because (a) most drug users started with alcohol, and (b) youths who abstain from alcohol almost never take drugs. 2. Marijuana use is a cause of multiple-drug use: about 95 percent of youths who use more serious drugs started on pot; only 5 percent of serious drug users never smoked pot. 3. Youths who commit felonies started off with minor delinquent acts. Few delinquents (1 percent) report committing felonies only. Elliott, Huizinga & Ageton (1985) has been supported by other studies also indicating that delinquency and substance abuse are part of a general pattern of deviance or problem behavior syndrome, such as association with an antisocial peer group and educational failure (Farrell 1999, p. 177). There seems to be a pattern in which troubled youths start by committing petty crimes and drinking alcohol and proceed to harder drugs and more serious crimes. Both their drug abuse and the delinquency are part of an urban underclass lifestyle involving limited education, few job skills, unstable families, few social skills, and patterns of law violations. Strategy and Tactics One of the most publicized drug campaigns in the US is the War on Drugs, created by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA). The Partnership's contracted research posits that "every American [will] see or hear at least one anti-drug message per day." The organization states that its volunteer members have created over 250 multimedia messages that warn Americans about drug abuse and drug abusers. Newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, billboard owners, and even telephone directories contribute space and air time to "enable millions of Americans to receive Partnership messages" (PDFA fact sheet). U.S. media consumers might avoid presidential addresses and the inevitable sound bites that appear in news stories, but public service announcements permeate the American mass media experience (Elwood, 1994, p. 81). Since this is just a low-budget campaign, mass media could not be used as an efficient "public information machinery". However, a new media has been gaining raves and that is the Internet. Most especially in our target audience, the youths are fond of social networking websites and blogging. This is why FAD will obtain an account in social networking websites like Myspace and build up a website, where youths will gain friends, obtain useful information and be involved in the future activities of the program. Particularly Myspace.com, it is obviously a hugely popular internet socialization site owned by News Corporation Limited. MySpace, which is used mostly by younger users to communicate through home pages loaded with messages, photos, music, and more, has continued to surge, had grown to become multi-million dollar company. The company had a stunning 51.4 million unique users in May 2006, giving it the seventh-largest audience on the Web. Each month, the site gets more visitors than Amazon (AMZN), Apple Computer (AAPL), or The New York Times Digital (NYT). News Corp. refused to reveal how much revenue MySpace generates, but one person familiar with the company says it makes about $100 million in banner ads alone (Rosenbush, 16 June 2006). According to the MySpace website, their site is for everyone: * Friends who want to talk online * Single people who want to meet other singles * Matchmakers who want to connect their friends with other friends * Families who want to keep in touch--map your Family Tree * Business people and co-workers interested in networking * Classmates and study partners * Anyone looking for long lost friends (About Myspace). True enough, anyone can make a personal profile online using the Myspace website. One can gain friends by adding another person's profile into their friends list. In his paper, Kheine (29 April 2004) had voiced out that these social networking sites (SNS) are innate to the human cultural experience. The websites, like Myspace, are popular because they focus on personal relationships and orient on specific social or informational goals. This is how the SNS sites attract participants. They engage people with similar or various interests ranging from making business contacts to dating and leisure activities. Likewise, SNS sites facilitate narrowly focused information exchange including recommendations, news, editorial and personal narrative, and so on. Each of the current SNS applications appeals to a basic human desire for connection and inclusiveness within a social group or activity. Figure 1. Membership of Notable Social Networking Websites (Source: Blackplanet.com, Alexa Internet). In Figure 1, it can be seen that there are about 247 million people who are members of social networking sites. Almost one third of these members are subscribed to Myspace.com. As of now, it is indubitable to argue that Myspace is by far the most popular social networking web site. The website is co-founded in 2003 by Tom Anderson, an amateur musician with a film degree from the University of California at Los Angeles and Chris DeWolfe, a marketing expert, MySpace has become the premier social networking Web site since its January 2004 launch. As of May 2006, it has nearly 80 million members, and it continues to grow each day. MySpace receives more daily traffic than popular websites such as the retail outlet Amazon.com, the user-generated encyclopedia Wikipedia and the online auction site eBay. MySpace also often receives at least 20 times as many visitors as competitors such as Friendster. With this, Myspace will be particularly be helpful in our strategies by informing the youth about our activities, seminars/workshops, peer empowerment and counselling activities. Calendar of Activities and Budget First Month - Planning and Gathering of Youth Volunteers Second Month - Obtaining Support of Other Existing Youth Groups in Schools and Sponsors Third Month - Launching of Websites, Blog Sites and Myspace Accounts 4th and 5th Months - Campus Visits with Seminars and Workshops All Year Round - Athletic Activities, FAD Parties and Peer Counselling Since this is a volunteer public campaign, the budget will start as low as $10,000. However, the group can obtain financial aid from sponsors who have the same advocacy. Evaluation and Monitoring FAD should have a monthly meeting to assess the development of activities and monitoring these in the process. Evaluation of an informational objective often entails a compilation of photos of activities and an analysis of how often key message points were delivered. Other methods might be to determine how many campuses were visited or the estimated number of participants in each activity of the group. Motivational objectives often are measured and evaluated by increases in number of people who obtained information and counselling, or by benchmark surveys that measure people's perceptions before and after a campaign. Appendix A: Direct Costs of Drug Abuse Sources: The National Drug Control Strategy (Washington, DC: ONDCP, 2004); and Bureau of Justice Statistics, Drugs, Crime and the Justice System: A National Report (Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1993). References About Myspace. Myspace Website. Retrieved 18 February 2007 at http://www.myspace.com/Modules/Common/Pages/AboutUs.aspx. Chaiken, M. and Johnson, B. (1988). Characteristics of Different Types of Drug-Involved Youth, Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice. Chavez, E. L., Edwards, R., & Oetting, E. R. (1989). Mexican American and White American School Dropouts' Drug Use, Health Status, and Involvement in Violence. Public Health Reports, 104, 594-604. Coalition for Juvenile Justice. (2001). Abandoned in the Back Row: New Lessons in Education and Delinquency Prevention. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Crum, R. M., Helzer, J. E., & Anthony, J. C. (1993). Level of Education and Alcohol Abuse and Dependence in Adulthood: A Further Inquiry. American Journal of Public Health, 83, 830-837. Dorn, S. (1996). Creating the Dropout: An Institutional and Social History of School Failure. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Ellickson, P., Bui, K., Bell, R. & McGuigan, K. A. (1998). Does Early Drug Use Increase the Risk of Dropping Out of High School Journal of Drug Issues, 28, 357-380. Elliott, D., Huizinga, D. and Ageton, S. (1985). Explaining Delinquency and Drug Abuse, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Elwood, W. N. (1994). Rhetoric in the War on Drugs: The Triumphs and Tragedies of Public Relations. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Farrell, G. (1999). Drugs and Drug Control, in Newman, G. (ed.), Global Report on Crime and Justice. New York: Oxford University Press. Feigelman, W. (1990). Treating Teenage Drug Abuse in a Day Care Setting. New York: Praeger Publishers. Greenwood, G. (1992). Substance Abuse Problems among High-Risk Youth and Potential Interventions, Crime and Delinquency 38:444-458. Institute for Social Research- University of Michigan. (2002, December 16). Ecstasy Use Among American Teens Drops for the First Time in Recent Years, and Overall Drug and Alcohol Use Also Decline in the Year After 9/11. News Release. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Johnson, R. A., & Hoffmann, J. P. (2000). Adolescent Cigarette Smoking in U.S. Racial/Ethnic Subgroups: Findings from the National Education Longitudinal Study. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 41, 392-407. Kheine, Thomas P. Social Networking Systems: History, Critique, and Knowledge Management Potentials. INF 385Q University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 18 February 2007 at http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/i385q/archive/kiehne_t/kiehne(2004)-sns.pdf. Krohn, M. D., Thornberry, T. P., Collins-Hall, L.,&Lizotte, A. J. (1995). School Dropout, delinquent Behavior, and drug use: An Examination of the Causes and Consequences of Dropping Out of School. In H. B. Kaplan (Ed.), Drugs, Crime, and Other Deviant Adaptations (1st ed., pp. 163-183). New York: Plenum. Mackesy-Amiti, M.E. and Fendrich, M. (1995, November). Delinquent Behavior and Inhalant Use Among High School Students. Paper presented at the American Society of Criminology meeting, Boston. McWhirter, J. J., McWhirter, B. T., McWhirter, A. M., & McWhirter, E. H. (1993). At-Risk Youth: A Comprehensive Response. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company. NIH Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program. (2003). Preliminary Data on Drug Use & Related Matters Among Adult Arrestees and Juvenile Detainees, 2002, Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice. Obot, I. S. & Anthony, J. C. (1999). Association of School Dropout with Recent and Past Injecting Drug Use among African American Adults. Addictive Behaviors, 24, 701-705. Rosenbush, Steve.Mining for Gold on MySpace; The Mushrooming Social Site Wants a Search Engine. Expect a Fierce Battle to Land the Job From the Likes of Google, Yahoo!, and MSN).Business Week Online(June 16, 2006). Retrieved 18 February 2007 at http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2006/tc20060616_682547.htm. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2003). 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office. U.S. Department of Justice. (1989). Drugs and Crime Facts, 1988, Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. Read More