Latest news with #drugeducation
National Post
10 hours ago
- Health
- National Post
FIRST READING: B.C. politician pushes bill to force schools to say drugs are bad
Article content TOP STORY Article content The B.C. Conservatives are calling for measures to keep 'radical drug lobbyists' out of schools after a school event that featured info cards on how to do drugs such as cocaine, meth and GHB. Article content Article content 'This isn't education. It is grooming kids into drug culture,' said B.C. Conservative MLA Steve Kooner in a Tuesday statement endorsing his private member's bill that, if passed, would compel schools to 'explicitly discourage drug use.' Article content The event in question was a Pride festival sanctioned by the Nanaimo-Ladysmith Public Schools District. Article content After accompanying her 10-year-old to the event, Nanaimo, B.C. mother Ruth Taylor alerted local media to the presence of postcard-sized leaflets that local media described as 'drug use information cards.' Article content A card labelled 'meth,' for instance, details the drug's euphoric effects, its reported ability to increase libido and even includes recommended dosages. Article content The NDP invite the pro-drug lobby into BC schools. Conservatives are fighting to get them out. — Steve Kooner MLA (@SteveKooner) June 24, 2025 Article content 'A light dose is around 5-10 mg, a common dose is around 10-30 mg, and a strong dose is 30-40 mg,' it reads. Article content A card for GHB, a common date-rape drug, reads that the substance can 'make the user feel more relaxed and more sociable.' It adds, 'G can also increase libido.' Article content The cards were among the literature offered at a booth run by AIDS Vancouver Island, a harm reduction non-profit funded in part by government bodies such as Island Health and the Public Health Agency of Canada. Article content Taylor told Chek News that she confronted AIDS Vancouver Island about the materials being inappropriate for schoolchildren, but that 'they were not receptive to what I was saying' and 'the cards stayed for the remainder of the event.' Article content AIDS Vancouver Island didn't respond to a National Post query before press time. In a statement provided to Global News on Monday, the group said it was told the event was for older children and that they stood by 'the fundamental importance of youth receiving honest, factual and appropriate substance use and sexual health materials.'
South China Morning Post
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
How social media can be terrible for teens and the people fighting back with bans and more
By the time her younger son Dan was 16, the online world had already transformed the landscape of the average teenager, both inside and out, Fiona Spargo-Mabbs says. 'It meant Dan and his friends – without me knowing about anything other than the party nearby he'd asked permission to go to – could message one another online to meet, find their way to an illegal rave that had been organised through social media, and on the way there take a drug I'd never heard of, which was easily available by messaging a dealer, and affordable with a bunch of boys' paper-round and pocket money.' That specific occasion was the first time Dan had gone to such an event. He died three days later from multiple organ failure caused by taking a dose of MDMA (Ecstasy) that, unknown to him, contained a lethal amount of the drug. His mother has since founded, and is director of, the Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation, a UK-based drug education charity, to help prevent similar tragedies. She retells what she went through in the 2024 book Un:Stuck: Helping Teens and Young Adults Flourish in an Age of Anxiety, by Irish nutritionist and wellness expert Kate O'Brien. Fiona Spargo-Mabbs founded the Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation following the death of her 16-year-old son Dan to help prevent similar tragedies. Photo: Fiona Spargo-Mabbs Dan's story is also retold for secondary school audiences in the play I Love You, Mum – I Promise I Won't Die, from playwright Mark Wheeller, to help them make good choices. Today's 18-year-olds have only known a world with social media in their pockets.
