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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1577 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

I would like to read some of the exercises that students themselves have set. This will give members a perception of the level of understanding and thought that young people in year 9 at Canberra High School are putting together in relation to this very important issue.

For instance, they talk about evaluating the presentation of a guest speaker on drug policy and drug issues in schools, designing an advertisement to inform young people of the legalities of marijuana use in the ACT, producing a video documentary on physiological and psychological dependence on a drug and its withdrawal from the body. They also talk about writing an essay entitled "If I were the Minister for Health, what would I do?"

Another exercise is to provide a report analysing the lyrics of a song of their choice, describing how the lyrics convey the overall theme of the song in relation to drug use. Yet another exercise is to conduct an experiment on lung capacity-and there are a whole range of other exercises. I believe this shows that young people in our schools are thinking, in a comprehensive way, about how drugs impact on their lives, and the complexity of measures needed to respond to them.

I will talk about a few others. Seventy schools have already formed school health committees to address health and drug-related issues. It is anticipated that another 30 schools will form school health committees during this year. The ACT health promoting school network continues to grow and assist schools in this area. This is a very practical program aimed at engaging schools and school communities in talking about issues of drug use and how they can best be addressed.

This is about highlighting the fact that schools, on their own, cannot be expected to address this problem. It is a societal problem, and because schools serve as a focus for the neighbourhood community, they can be a useful forum in getting that debate going within a community.

In addition to the school health committee program I have just talked about, there have been over 20 local drug summits conducted in the Canberra region through the local school community drug summits program. These also are based on a whole school community approach. Schools, such as Southern Cross Primary School, have successfully engaged over 100 teachers, students, parents and community agency workers in drug-related educational programs. Through the drug education project for school communities in the ACT, grants have been provided to four schools, to engage kindergarten to year 7, and year 10, students in a formal learning process on health and drug education issues.

Recently, the drug referral information centre at college program was successfully trialled at the Canberra College. The department, in partnership with the Department of Health and Community Care, supported this program, providing, for all government colleges in the ACT, for a drug referral information centre worker to visit each college in an outreach capacity for several hours each week. Teachers have also participated in a professional development workshop and have been able to access resource material provided through the drug education project for school communities in the ACT.

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