“Hashish and Marijuana”—An Innovative, Interdisciplinary Drug Education Curricular Program for High Schools

Abstract

The interdisciplinary, chemically-oriented curricular unit “Hashish and Marijuana” is an attempt to cope effectively with the drug abuse problem among youngsters by means of an appropriate model to be implemented within the realm of natural sciences—social sciences interface at high schools. This preventive program in drug education which equally emphasizes the cognitive and the affective domains was developed at Haifa University in Israel and has already been field-tested on a pilot scale. Preliminary results indicate both significant (positive) change in the cognitive levels of knowledge about the “drug issue” as well as “positive” changes in the concerned attitudes of the target population. Significantly, the new curriculum was favorably accepted by both students and teachers. Based on these results, it is believed that our program is a viable educational vehicle in equipping secondary school students with the necessary intellectual “ammunition” and attitudinal “load” to cope successfully with the problem of drug abuse within their realism of constraints under a variety of life situations.