Looking for anti-drug messages in kids' games.

April 6, 2008 2:51 PM

Where on the Web do I find anti-drug activities (word games, art, crafts, specifically addressing drug use) for kids ages 9-12? My Google-Fu seems to be failing me. Thanks!
posted by jackypaper to education (9 comments total)

Well, there are some kids' activites in the kids section of the D.A.R.E. website, but this isn't really something you can word-search out of your kids. D.A.R.E. actually contributes greatly to gateway drug use because if kids try weed and don't become terrorists like the commercials say they will, then maybe D.A.R.E. was full of it about heroin too!

You might check out the Kaiser Foundation's Talking with kids pages, they're basic, but they are moving in the right direction. The best angle is not to convince your kids that drugs are bad, but to explain to them why drugs are bad for kids. Then everything you told them won't get thrown out with the bathwater when they meet a cool stoner in college. Just a thought.
posted by ulotrichous at 3:39 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

Crafts and word games about drug use would have struck me as pretty hilarious and impossible to take seriously, particularly by the time I was 12. Maybe try for a slightly more serious, age appropriate approach?
posted by mostlymartha at 4:04 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

Try talking to your kids honestly and openly about drugs. Then find an activity that they are into and help them get really involved in it so that they don't have times for drugs. Skateboarding worked for me. College didn't.
posted by trbrts at 4:19 PM on April 6

Thanks, everyone, for the advice about talking to my kids about drugs, but I don't have any children. I should have clarified. I'm compiling these pages as examples of anti-drug materials being produced for "pre-teens." Obviously we're not taking the right steps as a society; perhaps we're putting too much hope in coloring-book pages and other activities. I'm just looking to see what's out there on the Web.
posted by jackypaper at 4:22 PM on April 6

My experience with the DARE program sounds like it was the opposite of ulotrichous's. When I was 11 or so we had a police officer (the DARE guy for our school) who came and gave a series of talks about different drugs. His whole schtick was that he was going to give us basically straight information about the risks, how the risks are quite different between different categories of drugs, etc -- and he wasn't going to give us a bunch of overblown scare tactic stuff because that's what they gave him when he was in high school and it all turned out to be a lie. What I recall of those talks was very straightforward, these drugs (heroin, crack) are seriously dangerous and addictive, and these other drugs (pot, LSD) are not so dangerous although probably not good if your brain is still developing, and you should really look into the facts before you decide to do anything. It was a very effective and thoughtful program.

So at any rate, I would get in touch with DARE and see what their standard curriculum is, and talk to some people who have conducted DARE courses in your area to see how much variation there is.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:34 PM on April 6

Oh, so you're not asking for effective anti-drug materials, just anti-drug materials. That makes it a lot easier.
posted by Jairus at 4:54 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

With the caveat that I have some association with this group, there's Safety First, but it doesn't really go for coloring books.
posted by gingerbeer at 4:58 PM on April 6

Here are some:

American Council for Drug Education

More (State of TX search site)
More
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(want me to keep going?)
(can you tell this is part of what I do for work?)
(p.s. these aren't recommendations. I haven't used any of them)
posted by Stewriffic at 5:30 PM on April 6

The game NARC for NES is a whole game about anti-drug.
posted by PowerCat at 7:09 PM on April 6