Bringing drug education to the classroom. Story highlights. National Drug Alcohol Facts Week targeting students takes place January 2. Students need to hear the facts and learn how to say no, parents and experts say Kelly Wallace is CNNs digital correspondent and editor at large covering family, career and life. Read her other columns, and follow her reports at CNN Parents and on Twitter. CNNSam Motsay, by all accounts, was your typical boy next door honor roll student, basketball player, band member, devoted big brother. But on May 1. 1, 2. I/41yjR1gZfoL.jpg' alt='Drugs In American Society 8Th Edition' title='Drugs In American Society 8Th Edition' />Mothers Day, he made a decision a decision that that took his life and shattered the future for his parents and younger brother. Parents tend to think, Thats not my child. Thats not my kid, said Jeanine Motsay, Sams mother, in an interview. But Sam was anybodys kid. The Greenwood, Indiana youth, 1. In his case, it was an initial experiment that went terribly awry. Sam took a synthetic drug, a hallucinogen called 2. Route Riter. I NBOMe also known as 2. C I NBOMe. It is a drug designed to imitate the high from LSD and can be so strong that a dose just the size of a few grains of salt can be enough to get high, according to this CNN investigation. Sam and two friends, who were all subject to random drug testing as athletes, had heard from their peers that LSD goes quickly through your body and wouldnt be detected, said Motsay. So they thought they would try it, but what they were sold instead, without them realizing it, was the synthetic drug that turned deadly, she said. Had Sam and his friends had information any at all about synthetic drugs that have flooded into the country in the past few years and how dangerous they can be, they might have made a very different decision nearly two years ago, she said. Sam died his friends survived. That is why she has devoted much of the focus of her nonprofit called Sams Watch to raising awareness in schools across the country about drugs. I think education is key to prevention, said Motsay. I mean thats where it starts. Children may receive some anti drug messaging through the D. RBlzg/x480-XKp.jpg' alt='Drugs In American Society 8Th Edition' title='Drugs In American Society 8Th Edition' />A. R. E. program in elementary school, but research has shown that program has had no real impact on the rate of drug use. What children need is education during their teenage years in middle and high school when their brains are still not fully developed to assess risk and when they are presented with opportunities to try and use drugs, Motsay and many other advocates and experts I spoke with for this story say. What we really want to do is get them the facts, said Motsay. Theyre smart. They can take that information and they can work with it because I can guarantee you. Last year, Motsay encouraged more than 4. Indiana, which included nearly 3. National Drug Alcohol Facts Week. The weeklong national initiative sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse seeks to provide teens and educators with educational resources and tools that they can use in the classroom to shatter the myths and address the consequences of substance abuse. For this years event, beginning the week of January 2. Get the latest News news with exclusive stories and pictures from Rolling Stone. Aspirin is recommended as a lifelong therapy that should never be interrupted for patients with cardiovascular disease. Clopidogrel therapy is mandatory for six weeks. Lorazepam, sold under the brand name Ativan among others, is a benzodiazepine medication. It is used to treat anxiety disorders, trouble sleeping, active seizures. Diovol Drug Information from Drugs. Includes Diovol side effects, interactions and indications. The North American Menopause Society NAMS is a great resource for women regarding menopause information. Get the latest on menopause management from NAMS experts. The care of patients with varicose veins and associated chronic venous diseases Clinical practice guidelines of the Society for Vascular Surgery and the American. BibMe Free Bibliography Citation Maker MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard. Motsay says larger schools in Indiana have signed up to participate, 2. One of those schools, Center Grove Middle School North Sam attended Center Grove Middle School Central, will be holding a SWa. P Meet a meeting of Sams Watch and parents, organized by students from the National Junior Honor Society. We came up with this week six years ago. This is our sixth year, said Brian Marquis, public liaison officer for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, referring to the weeklong focus on drug and alcohol education in schools across the country. The idea really is to counteract the myths about drugs and alcohol that teens get from the Internet, from television, movies and music. Hearing from people whose lives were affected by drugs, along with professionals who can discuss issues such as the science of addiction, can be extremely powerful for teenagers, Marquis said. That is why at one of the National Institute on Drug Abuses signature events, a gathering of hundreds of high school students in Washington, D. C. later this month, Barbara Theodosiou, a mother who lost her son to drugs, will be among the speakers. With someone like Barbara, she has the real life experience, said Marquis. I really think thats a difference maker. Theodosiou, the founder of The Addicts Mom, an online support community for mothers of addicts, plans to tell the students exactly what her son Daniel Montalbano lost out on when he started taking large quantities of cough medicine to get high at the age of 1. After countless overdoses and rehab visits, and jail time, he died at the age of 2. When you hear the story of Daniels life, stories are extremely, extremely powerful, said Theodosiou, whom I have reported on in previous stories on the impact of addiction. So were going to be sharing what did it cost our family, what did it cost Daniel, what do drugs do. When I share on their level the life of a person whos not really far off from how old they are, I believe that theyll be able to relate. I just want to educate kidsFormer addict Michael De. Leon says he is committed to trying to get in front of as many middle and high school children as possible. Karla Kush And Johnny Castle more. Hes a former prison inmate who founded the nonprofit organization Steered Straight, Inc., which aims to provide motivational messages to young people about substance abuse, gang involvement and bullying. Hes also created powerful documentaries about the heroin epidemic in the United States, including An American Epidemic and Kids are Dying. De. Leon has taken his student assembly presentation about drug awareness and prevention to middle and high schools, alternative schools, juvenile detention centers and treatment centers in 4. You go into the school for 9. De. Leon. Its got to be captivating. Its got to be engaging. Its got to be believable and then its got to be entertaining. Based on pre and post presentation surveys he does with students, he can tell the message is getting through. For instance, before the presentation, about 3. After the presentation, that number jumps to around 7. Building on that success, De. Leon teamed up with two professors at Springfield College in Tampa to develop a curriculum based on the Kids are Dying documentary, which focuses on the heroin epidemic in New Jersey, what caused it and what can be done to solve the problem. The two week drug education curriculum will be rolled out in 1. February. Getting schools to implement this kind of curriculum is tough, De. Leon concedes, due to the culture of testing in education today and pressures on teachers, students and schools. If we cant take instruction time away from these teachers, then how do we get it in to the kids Weve got to figure it out somehow, said De. Leon. And if were not going to give a whole semester, lets give 1. We have to give these kids this education. We just have to. In Maryland, students are required to take a health education class before graduation, which includes a unit on drugs and is usually taken in the 9th grade. In addition, in Carroll County, Maryland, every 1. Students hear from education and law enforcement officials, but also from a mother in the area who lost her son to a heroin overdose and a former female and male student who were heroin addicts and are now in recovery, said Dawn Rathgeber, assistant supervisor for health education, K 1. Bib. Me Free Bibliography Citation Maker.