Effective vs. Ineffective Shock and Awe Drug Prevention

Flederhaus full of hammocks, Vienna Austria

I met the most interesting person ever today, my 15 year old son announces exuberantly while we are chatting in the car.

He explains that a woman came from "Barnes Jewish" and visited his health class today. The girls thought she was "adorable". She had so much energy, was jumping around and engaging everyone and "using her power for good, not for sarcasm."

He goes on to explain that this was a for a drug prevention program: "you know, usually, they show us 80 year old people, who are dying from lung cancer, and we all think that gosh, we didn't think we'd live to be 80...but she showed us kids who were dying from drug use. This was shock and awe that worked!"

He quips that she showed them a smoker who grew hair on his tongue and cancerous testicles (no time wasted here: there is a recent study linking marijuana and testicular cancer.) Nobody wants to smoke tobacco or marijuana anymore, mom!

Note to school programmers: threats to tongues and testicles appear more effectively scary than threats to 80 year old lungs and throats.

I'm going to find the name of that most interesting person ever and send her a thank you note.

Till Later,

Anne