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Originally Posted by Willravel
That's not a simple issue. Most teenagers are going to experiment with marijuana, but with a statistically lower number will be experimenting with harder drugs.
If they're likely to do it, it makes sense to prepare them to do it responsibly.
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What about cigarette smoking? Chewing tobacco? How do they do that responsibly? In my view there are some things adults can do that teens should not do, I simply say sex is one of them. I would not want schools saying if your are going to smoke here is how to do it responsibly and I don't want them doing that with sex either.
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"Just say no" is actually just saying yes to ignorant naivete.
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I disagree. I think people can be informed and "just say no". "just say no" is a slogan, I don't advocate ignorance.
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Not only was it a spectacular failure, but it demonstrated to an entire generation (my generation), that the establishment didn't have anything meaningful to say on the subject. For us it was a bunch of morons that couldn't grasp our culture because they didn't even try, all they wanted was to look tough on crime and drugs.
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I think I am older than you, and what was a failure was the over the top scare tactics in the 60's and 70's. As soon as a person realized that a puff of marijuana did not actually turn them into a drug crazed raving maniac "the man" lost all credibility. "Just say no" is a much softer more realistic approach.
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Even with a 10 million man dedicated police force and closed circuit cameras in every house in America, you're not even going to slow down teen sex, drinking, and light drug use. The only and best method for prevention is education. Always has been, always will be.
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There are some interesting trends at work, and it is difficult to pin down the explanation, but we can not say, "just say no" to teen sex is not a factor.
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If recent declines in teen childbearing are the result of fewer teens getting pregnant in the first place, the obvious next question is: why? Are fewer teens avoiding pregnancy by abstaining from sex, or are those who are having sex using contraception more successfully?
Not surprisingly, the answer is: both. But deconstructing that answer is critical, because it goes to the heart of a number of relevant and timely public policy questions, among them the debate over public funding for abstinence-only education and for more-comprehensive approaches (see related story,).
In 1999, researchers at The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) analyzed the reasons behind the recent declines in the U.S. teen pregnancy rate, using data from two comparable, large-scale government surveys, the 1988 and 1995 cycles of the National Surveys of Family Growth, and recent information on rates of teenage pregnancies, births and abortions. AGI's methodology follows the consensus of a group that was convened by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to examine measurement issues regarding teen sexual activity and contraceptive use, which included researchers from AGI, the National Center for Health Statistics, The Urban Institute, Child Trends and the National Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy.
The AGI analysis concluded that approximately one-quarter of the decline in teenage pregnancy in the United States between 1988 and 1995 was due to increased abstinence. (The proportion of all teenagers who had ever had sex decreased slightly, but nonsignificantly, during this period, from 53% to 51%.) Approximately three-quarters of the drop resulted from changes in the behavior of sexually experienced teens. (The pregnancy rate among this group had fallen 7%, from 211 per 1,000 to 197.)
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Teen Pregnancy: Trends And Lessons Learned
This is an interesting report although a bit dated. You have to be careful when the use the term "sexually experienced teens" compared to the entire population. When looking at teen pregnancy, the biggest impact will come from addressing "sexually experienced teens" as compared to the entire teen population. If we segregate the groups, I would agree the "sexually experienced teens" need a more specific form of sexual behavior education, I just don't see it as the responsibility of the schools. Schools should focus on the ABC's of educating, not trying to mold sexual behavior..
---------- Post added at 11:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:13 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by ratbastid
Hell, I WANT my kids to experiment with alcohol and possibly even mild drugs. Releasing them into the wild as young adults, utterly unprepared for life experience... I'm just not for that.
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I agree. I want to be the one teaching my son, I want to make sure the information is consistent with what I know to be real. Like I wrote earlier, I don't want someone in a school handing my son a condom, just because...I don't want him thinking that just because my teacher/counselor/dean/nurse gave it to me, it is o.k.