Drug Education series – Page 7 – Matters of Substance

With the recent deaths at Toronto’s VELD festival or the Boonstock Festival in Penticton, BC, many people are now scrambling to come up with explanations for the tragedies. Toronto Police are blaming bad drugs. Many media outlets are taking the opportunity to blame youth culture. Whatever story we tell, the fact is that people are doing drugs at parties.

How can we encourage people to party more safely? (image courtesy of the Trip! Project)

That’s where The Trip! Project comes in. We go where the party is. We hit up bars, festivals, frosh events, concerts, bathhouses, raves, after hours clubs – wherever folks are getting down. Here at Trip! we neither condemn nor condone drug use. Trip! is a harm reduction outreach group based in Toronto. We offer peer support, tripsitting (supporting someone through a psychedelic crisis) and give out tons of information about how to party safer.

The Trip! Project is run by peers, youth who party themselves and are active in the scene. Peer education is an invaluable tool in harm reduction. When we set up a Trip! booth, we are able to engage with people who party on a different level than other drug educators. As peers, we are able to meet people where they are at, have honest and frank discussions about substances and create a sense of trust. When we do rounds at a party, we’re checking in on people who are suspicious of security and medics but tend to be in situations outside of their experiences. We are able to offer on the spot support, answer basic questions, suggest ways to reduce harm, and spot signs of medical distress. Peers are trusted because they operate outside of formal institutions associated with one-sided information linked to an abstinence-based, prohibition model.

At parties, we set up Trip! booths, which have all kinds of non-judgemental and helpful information on different substances, safer use and safer sex. We give out condoms and lube as well as different coloured straws, so that if folks are snorting with friends they can keep track of their straw and reduce the risk of spreading Hepatitis C.

Our outreach workers also liaise with venues and promoters to help them make their parties safer. We advocate for free water. We encourage clubs and venues to allow ins and outs so that people can cool down and suggest other simple measures to help create a safer nightlife. At festivals, we encourage organizers to keep police away from medic tents unless absolutely necessary. This stops people in need of medical attention from avoiding medics because of fear of criminalization. Most importantly, we try to help organizers acknowledge drug use at their events and allow us to help make it safer.

Festivals can be safer. Nobody has to die at a party. But we need a harm reduction approach that gives people the information and resources they need to stay safe.

Contact us at: info@tripproject.ca and like us on Facebook!

Author: Steff Pinch, harm reduction outreach worker at the Trip! Project

**Please note that the material presented here does not necessarily imply endorsement or agreement by individuals at the Centre for Addictions Research of BC.

The great appeal of “just say no” is that it is simple – straightforward. But that simplicity replaces a broad commitment to “education” with a narrow application of “social marketing” (the art of selling someone on an idea or behaviour that promotes the social good). Nothing wrong with social marketing, but it should never be all there is to drug education.

A similar narrowing process seems to have happened with our concept of discipline which has largely come to be seen as punishment. But discipline is from the root “disciple,” and a disciple is a student or apprentice – one who is learning. So how did discipline come to mean punishment? Well, because some ancient one discovered that humans do not like pain. And, if you induce pain and associate it with a particular behaviour, a person may learn to avoid the pain by avoiding the behaviour – a sort of hands-on social marketing. All of this is true – but it is not the whole truth.

It is too simple.

Life is more complex. Not everyone has had the same past experiences or holds the same beliefs or has the same personality. As a result, not everyone reacts the same way to any specific situation, including punishment or a social marketing message. In practice a social marketing campaign that works with some people may, in fact, have a negative impact on those most vulnerable to harm. The same is true for punishment.

So, for example, a zero-tolerance policy related to drug use may help students who are highly connected to the school and motivated to achieve high marks to make sure they do not get caught smoking weed at school. But the same policy might have a very different effect on a student who feels little connection to the school. The resulting suspension may actually be a “badge of achievement” rather than something to be avoided. That means, the punishment has little deterrent effect, but it is, nonetheless, harmful in that it lowers the student’s connection to school and the chance of successful completion. The evidence is mounting that punitive responses are doing more harm than good.

So what can schools do about drugs? The available evidence seems to suggest that multiple strategies are needed and that these various elements of a comprehensive approach need to work together. For example, clear policies that articulate acceptable behaviour can define a positive school culture. But, it is also important that the policies and practices engage all members of the community (including students and their families) in nurturing this positive physical and social environment. Well-trained and supported teachers will facilitate learning environments that engage students as active learners. Restorative approaches to discipline will contribute to, rather than interrupt, learning for students who get into trouble. And a continuum of school- and community-based services will support and promote student and staff health and well-being.

None of this, of course is simple, but then …

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong” (H. L. Mencken).

Author: Dan Reist, Assistant Director (Knowledge Exchange), Centre for Addictions Research of BC

**Please note that the material presented here does not necessarily imply endorsement or agreement by individuals at the Centre for Addictions Research of BC.

Category: Drug Education series

How Peer Education can make Festivals Safer

Must we punish in order to teach?