Lemmings in school, what are they teaching about drug addiction, fentanyl, and opiods?

There are school-aged people on Lemmy? I assumed the vast majority are older millennials (with a touch of gray), who are also Linux users, not straight, and have some level of obsession with Star Trek and — God knows why — beans.

hetero gen Z windows user here who didn't watch star trek. but yeah i get that impression as well.

also that people are even more communist over here.

and yes, i will switch to linux in the near future.
- Commie grey millennial here. I'm a drug and alcohol counselor in a prison. I teach a group on opioid overdose prevention to the inmates, but no clue what they teach in school.
- Gen X, hetero, use linux, smoke pot, watch star trek. I went to the Doobie Brothers concert.
- There are dozens of us!
So this is how I find out I'm not straight? It's not that I expected.
- This is how I found I out like beans, so I feel you man
- If the last time that dick in your hand wasn't enough proof, here you are. (Assuming you also have a dong.)
I'm not gay (yet?) but after using lemmy for a while the rest is now pretty accurate.
- Yet 😏
That is alarmingly accurate.
I'm 13, straight and not a big fan of star trek.

I do use Linux, though.
- But what is your position on beans? You're strangely quite on that subject. 🤨
- You’re me, but 20 years younger..
- Same. I also hate BEANS.
I'm a gen Z currently in college! =)
I am 17 but linux and not being straight do check out lol
- Maybe you're an older millennial at heart?
I'm gen Z and I think, that there are a lot of us.
I'm graduating 12th grade this year, so idk what you're on about
am teenager

am also need time to move to linux
Beans? Am I missing something?
- A while ago (soon after the Reddit exodus, but I can't recall specifically when) it seemed like every other post on Lemmy was just shitposting bean memes. I still see beans referenced periodically. But if your experience on Lemmy was strictly highly curated you may have not experienced the beans.
You described me perfectly except for the Linux bit (and I do t have greys, those are the natural variation in my hair’s pigment).

Unless you count my home assistant/Plex server running Linux makes me a ‘Linux user’…
- That's a Linux server, I'd count it 😛
2005 kid who just got into uni. Straight, moderate, Linux user
- Pro tip: if you want to mess with an older millennial, say something like "I was born in 2005... Yeah I'll be turning 19 this year" to which the older millennial will say "the fuck? 19? But 2005 was like 5 years ago" and then watch them proceed to have an existential crisis.
  
  Also: it's cool to see so many younger people using Linux. I remember my friends and I in high school all trying Slackware Linux and congratulating anyone that actually got it to work with all their hardware.
Beans are great. That's why. Staples of my pantry: pasta, rice, beans (pinto, black, lentils, red, kidney) , ramen, nuts.
Who else got their gamer socks on?
There’s a reason why they call us Gen Xers the forgotten generation…
- Sorry for the Gen X erasure 😞
I feel like it's mostly minors here

I've been done with school for a hot minute now but here (Netherlands) they started in the last years at elementary school, around age 11. And then some more later in highschool roughly age 14.

Elementary was taught by a cop. Mostly sensible stuff and the risks. Nothing weird but like "weed isn't physically addictive but it can be mentally addictive, also you're probably smoking it and that ain't great." or how xtc is not that dangerous on its own but often there's junk mixed in. They also told us you can get your xtc tested by the government, anonymously. And yeah you actually don't get in trouble believe it or not.

I think it worked because they made it so unexciting that most people I know stay away from anything but weed and even then lots of people try it and never do it again.

Dear God, XTC is really addictive - you can feel your senses working overtime!
- https://youtu.be/p554R-Jq43A?si=pLzCLpy9x-5ZasE3
- MDMA is not addictive. Some bullshit bunk your source added to it might be though. Solution: don't buy bunk from randos.

graduated not too long ago, it was basically pure misinformation. the typical one touch will murder you, it'll ruin your life, with a dash of shaming people who have addictions.

Yeah, this is not the best question because you'll get very different answers from different parts of the world, or even different parts of the US.

I graduated more than a decade ago, and there was a lot more nuance than what you described. They taught us about different types of drugs and what their real effects were. I remember learning in high school that marijuana is less dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol.

In elementary school for me, there were big anti-smoking campaigns, but nothing about alcohol or harder drugs. The "just say no" was about peer pressure and doing anything you felt uncomfortable doing (including inappropriate touching).
With fentanyl specifically, that's not too far off lol

That being said, drugs are great m'kay

Oh, they just put "War on drugs" banner and that's it.

This is what I hate about my country. They only want to be seen like they're working, instead of actually working.

It's all aesthetic but no substantial

Generally they don't really mention it outside special occasions, and then it's just generally "drugs bad, don't do drugs".

I feel like pure demonization is such an easy path to distrust and abuse. For the longest time I didn't know the difference between even weed and other drugs, just that it was "bad", weed might as well have been crack. I sure as shit didn't know the harder drugs make you feel unimaginably good and that this in specific was the danger.

I actually had a bad LSD trip that went worse than it should have due to this demonization, I couldn't stop thinking of all the times I was told or overheard as a kid that such drugs drive you insane. I knew beforehand what I was doing and what that would entail, but it didn't matter once I had jumped in, the paranoia from years of growing up hearing such things won.

For sure raise awareness, for sure drive home the notion that certain drugs will fuck your life up, but they need to seriously sit down and explain the nuances between all of them, they need to explain risks and dangers (the real ones, not the propagandist talking points) as well as the effects, they need to compare them to alcohol, tobacco, coffee, hell even food since even that is addictive. People will try stuff, they better try stuff with an informed perspective and know which ones are too much to consider.

I just asked my 12-year old, and he says he's learning about this in his health class right now.

Fentanyl: "Only a very small amount will kill you. They are often laced in street drugs and stuff bought from the internet."

Opioids: "They're like painkillers and numb your senses and thoughts. They can make your slower and weird." (that's all he was told)

Nothing on the other stuff yet.

He's said that his teacher had a relative die from fentanyl. She's very passionate about drug education, from what he says, and notes that she hasn't ever said that "all drugs are bad" or anything like that.

She's also apparently brought in nurses and doctors to help with explanations and information about certain drugs. No cops, apparently, which thank god. Hopefully it stays that way.

So far, I'm very happy with the kind of drug education he's getting. I supplement it with more in-depth, one-on-one conversations, as well. Not all drugs are evil, and I let him know that.

They mostly taught me about drug classifications and effects. Not really anything in-depth about addiction

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We were supposed to talk about drugs for 2 years, but instead talked about bullying

We got a school project about drugs a couple years ago, but it was only one option out of a list of subjects for the project(i think, i dont remember exactly)

Them teenagers be saying things like they are not very bussin or pog champ. That it's kinda cringe tbh and L + ratio. I only can wonder what these words mean.

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what are they teaching about drug addiction

You probably shouldnt do it and you will regret it later

With the current fentanyl (and meth?) problem.

Huh?