JUST as the argument about the involvement of the drinks industry in the education sector had started to wane, the body at the heart of the discussion – Drinkaware – issued a lengthy statement this week.
Rather than pour cold water on the heated debate, the statement had the effect of fanning the flames once again.
And not only did it put the focus back on the controversy which surrounded revelations that the drinks industry had been chosen by many schools to educate our children about alcohol, but it gave us some interesting statistics, too.
To date, we learned, a total of 15,000 first to third year students have gone through the Drinkaware programme, with 161 schools having taken part and 313 teachers attending training over the past four years.
While Drinkaware may be registered as an independent charity, there is no doubt who is behind it. In a bid for respectability, it is the ‘healthy’ face of the alcohol industry – if that is not a complete contradiction already.
On its website it makes no bones about the many firms financing the ‘charity’ including Bulmers, Diageo, Heineken, Irish Distillers and many more smaller, independent spirits producers as well as big brand retailers, too.
In fairness to Drinkaware, there is no shortage of information on its website. However, while there is plenty of general information on its schools programme, there is very little detail about the finer details of the classes given to young teenagers.
A national newspaper said it had no success in getting the full course details when it approached Drinkaware to see exactly what our teenagers are being told about the drinks industry.
But one sentence on the site under the ‘Schools’ tab may give a hint: Under the heading ‘Key Recommendations For Best Practice’ and the sub-heading ‘Overall Aims and Principles’ the very first point is this: ‘It is recommended that the overall guiding aim for school programmes focusing on alcohol should be based on harm reduction. This view is based on research findings as well as contextual information regarding the cultural context of drinking in Ireland.’
So its primary focus is on ‘harm reduction’.
Its remit is, therefore, not to deter children from drinking alcohol, but to help them reduce the harm it causes.
It’s a bit like the more modern approach to drug use at festivals, where areas for testing the strength of narcotics are increasingly being made available. This is based on the belief that if people are going to use drugs anyway, let’s help them use them more safely.
Drinkaware also says on its website: ‘A guiding principle for a prevention programme should be the creation of a positive (rather than a punitive) atmosphere around the programme.’
That sentence would surely send a shiver down the spine of any family touched by alcohol abuse. And in this country, what family has not been?
There may be merit in the ‘if they are going to drink anyway, teach them how to drink safely’ approach, similar to that adopted for drug use at festival venues, but the difference here is that we are not dealing with adults, we are dealing with very young students – many first years are not yet even teenagers.
And here we have the drinks industry coming into our State-run schools, teaching them about using alcohol safely.
‘The programme fills a much-needed gap in alcohol education, that schools, parents and students themselves are calling for,’ the Drinkaware statement continued.
But why does the old adage of letting the fox guard the henhouse, spring so readily to mind?
