Drugs shown as the road to ruins

Youth & Careers

AN official has warned students that using marijuana will ruin their education.
National Youth Development Authority’s senior education officer liaisons Lawrence Tau told students at St Peter’s Channel Primary School in Port Moresby yesterday that taking marijuana at an early age destroys brain cells and affects the way one thinks, feel and behave in the future.
“It affects the way you think and behave and eventually pushes you out of the education system,” he told the students. Tau said alcohol and drugs were everywhere and it was important to educate our children at an early age.
“We have lost prevention grounds and as a result parents are not instilling enough values at home,” he said.
Tau said when children went to school, they were influenced by their peers to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol.
National Narcotics Bureau education and awareness officer David Silu said the drug awareness programme was aimed at reducing alcohol and drug abuse among the school-aged children.
“We are only looking at demand reduction. The demand in the school-aged children. We don’t want the police to come in and arrest the students,” Silu said. “We are trying to educate them to stay out of getting involved in these activities.”
Headmistress Martha Kaisapi said the awareness and education programme was important because the school had been focusing on student discipline, including teaching the students to stay away from alcohol and drugs.
“We have been trying to discourage and minimise our students from taking drugs and alcohol,” she said.
“We see that it has been contributing to their low academic performance in school.”
Kaisapi said these programmes helps the students to realise the importance of what they have been taught in class.
Tau said they were also concerned with the number of young people in psychiatric hospitals.
“Stay away from alcohol and drugs, realise your potentials and contribute meaningfully to the country,” Lau said.
The drug awareness and education programme was a three-month programme to be conducted in schools in the National Capital District and funded by the Australian government through Justice Service and Stability for Development programme and spearheaded by National Narcotics Bureau under the Justice Department.