DOES LIFE-EDUCATIONS DRUG-EDUCATION-PROGRAM HAVE A PUBLIC-HEALTH BENEFIT

The Life Education organization offers a drug education programme to a n estimated one million Australian primary schoolchildren. It is belie ved the programme delays experimentation with or initiation into smoki ng, alcohol use and the taking of analgesics. This study examined the short-term public health effects on 3000 11- and 12-year-old students, of whom 1700 were exposed to 5 consecutive years of the programme. Th e other 1300 students were not exposed to the programme. After control ling for the known predictors of social drug use there was no evidence that Life Education students, when compared with students receiving c onventional school-based drug education, were less likely to have smok ed, were less likely to have drunk or were less likely to have used an algesics. Indeed, the evidence suggested that Life Education-students were slightly more likely to use these substances, and that the progra mme had different effects on boys' and girls' drug use. Given that the se findings are consistent with previous research evaluating similar d rug education programmes, it is hypothesized they are most likely to d o with the design of the programme itself.