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Drug advice
for primary school children
A major public
information campaign was launched today by the Health
Promotion Agency for Northern Ireland to inform 10-13 year
olds about the dangers of drugs and to support parents in
advising their children about avoiding drugs.
Research conducted
by the Health Promotion Agency shows that nearly 10% of young
people aged 10-13 in Northern Ireland have been offered drugs
and of this number three out of ten have actually experimented
with drugs at some stage. As a result of these findings, over
100,000 booklets entitled, What
do you know about drugs? Your body, your life, your choice
have been printed to provide these young people with information
on drugs and the dangers associated with them. These will
be distributed to every young person in this age group via
their school.
Rob Phipps, Regional
Drugs Programme Manager with the Health Promotion Agency for
Northern Ireland, said: "We last targeted this group three
years ago, so now we have a new group of 10-13 year olds who
need to be informed about the dangers of drug misuse. Our
research also shows that the average age for young people
to be offered drugs is 11. Therefore, we will be using a television
advertisement supported by the booklet to try to get the message
across to young people that drugs can be very dangerous.
"Educating young
people about drugs is critical. We know from research that
young people themselves think drugs are easy to find. This
together with the positive message about drugs that they may
be getting from older friends makes it vital for us to ensure
that reliable, accurate information gets to this target age
group".
A new leaflet
for parents, Talking
about drugs has been specially produced
to support the campaign. It will also be sent out from schools
to all parents of 10-13 year olds. Recent research shows that
parents in Northern Ireland really do want to talk to their
children about drugs. Young people have said that they want
information from their parents.
As Rob Phipps
explained: "It is hoped that this new leaflet will help by
explaining why parents should talk about drugs. It covers
a range of areas including the age at which information on
drugs should be talked about. Helpful tips on how to bring
up the subject with your children are also included."
The television
advertising starts tonight and will run for one month. In
March a short advertisement will be shown to promote the National
Drugs Helpline.
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