In the field of the prevention of drug addiction it is not often you find proposals targeting young girls and boys aged 15 to 18. The main reason for this lies in the difficulties presented at this age for such purpose. Their proximity to the coming of age, differing educational situations, the presence of already stabilized consumption and the supposed impenetrability of this age range to adult proposals are aspects that enhance this difficulty.
However, one of the biggest problems is likely to be the difficulty of working with the perception that people of this age have of drugs. A perception that is solidly construed and difficult to change.
In Palermo CESIE involved 1,634 youngsters (we would herby like to thank the Schools for their availability and cooperation: Istituto Magistrale Regina Margherita, Liceo Scientifico Benedetto Croce, Educandato Statale Maria Adelaide, Liceo Classico Vittorio Emanuele II, Istituto Tecnico Trasporti e Logistica Nautico Gioeni Trabia) that started the path responding to an initial anonymous PRE-questionnaire to investigate personal and social data relating to drugs consumption – to then be divided within ‘study group’ (that experienced the CAPPYC program) and ‘control group’. In May 2015 we will finalize with the POST-questionnaires and a very last satisfaction one.
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The “CAPPYC (Cannabis Abuse Prevention Program for Young Consumers)” program is a methodological work proposal intended for educators in formal and non-formal education to facilitate their educational task with people between the ages of around 15 and 18.
The “CAPPYC” program is based on an audiovisual presentation that contains a series of excerpts from the story of Alex and Salva, two seventeen-year-old youths, about what they expect from the use of drugs (especially cannabis) and what drugs give them. The ultimate goal of “CAPPYC” is, precisely, to analyse and present the differences and discrepancies between the positive expectations generated by drug taking, that is the “benefits” of consumption, and the actual result.
One of the fundamental reasons why the consumption of a particular substance becomes established is one that focuses on the expectations of certain benefits following consumption. Often, these expectations are based on perceptions or constructs that may be more or less true to reality. Some such perceptions involve deified, fallacious ideas about the benefits of their consumption.
Dismantling these perceptions, or at least their deified part, is a highly appropriate preventive goal for this age group. Far from insisting on a preventive task based on information about the risks and the negative effects of drug use, our aim is to update and reformulate the positive effects of the supposed benefits of drug use, or at least of some of them.
Some of the topics are:
- The resolution of conflicts through negotiation.
- Generational differences.
- Perception of the relationship with cannabis in the present and in the future.
- False beliefs about cannabis.
- Use of cannabis for group creation and social relations.
- The search for fun through the use of cannabis.
- Reasons for starting to consume cannabis.
- Perception of control over the use of cannabis.
- Types of drug consumption.
- Expectations regarding the consumption of cannabis.
- Limitations stemming from the consumption of cannabis.
- Dependence on cannabis. Role of consumption.
- Decision-making.
- Dual nature of cannabis use.
- Evasion from problems through the use of cannabis.
Download the CAPPYC brochure (IT only)
The PRE-Questionnaires data analysis will be discussed during the next international meeting to be held in Palermo at CESIE on June 12, 2015. The meeting will also give opportunity to make a comparison of the situation of substance use and abuse in the five European countries involved (Spain, Portugal, Romania and Italy).
For further information please contact tiziana.giordano@cesie.org
