DOING DRUGS WITH
PAUL DILLON

As much as I go on about how amazing our kids are today (as I always say, I am fortunate enough to get to meet incredible young people doing unbelievable things every day), I have to say I also come in contact with some pretty impressive parents as well. Mums and Dads from across the country who work so hard to ensure their teen is safe, happy and loved. It continues to blow me away just how many people can show-up at a Parent Information Evening, particularly this year, with numbers averaging well over 200 each night. This could be due to the drug-related deaths of those young people at music festivals over the summer period, but nevertheless, we live in a busy world and most families are 'time-poor' - to turn-up and listen to a talk after a day at work and/or looking after a family is a huge commitment. Of course, there are always going to be those scary ones who want to be the 'cool parent' and try to be their child's best friend and, unfortunately, those are l

Over the past couple of weeks I have heard a number of stories from students I have met about the use of ketamine (or 'ket' or 'K' as they have called it). Each of these related to an emergency situation that they wanted to share with me where they, or their friends, had needed to call an ambulance because someone they were with had lost consciousness or were unable to be roused. Stories about calling 000 and wanting to share the fact that they had 'done the right thing' is nothing new - I hear them all the time. Like almost every other incident I have been told about, all of them involved young people who had drunk too much but what totally surprised me was how casually some of these students talked about the person they had to look after was using 'ket' or 'K'. Here is an example of one of those stories, with some details being altered to protect privacy: Janet is 17-years-old and in Year 12. A younger male friend who lived down the road

I have just started presenting at schools again and have updated my talks to cover what we know about the tragic deaths of a number of young people who died at music festivals over the summer. To be truthful, we don't know a lot … It takes quite some time for the toxicology results and the actual 'cause of death' to be released for each case and, as far as I am aware, family members can ask for the findings not to be released publicly. By the time we find out what happened (if we ever do), the results often attract little attention. Realistically, the faster we get this information, the quicker we can feed it back to users or potential users so that they can make more informed decisions and this has never been more important after what I have been hearing from young people in the last couple of weeks. In my Year 12 presentation I present data from the UK and Europe highlighting the dramatic increase in the purity of MDMA (the substance you want when you take ecstasy). I

Oprah Winfrey has been quoted as saying "I believe that one of life's greatest risks is never daring to risk." Although it can be scary, all parents have to let their kids put themselves 'out there', to try new things and to push limits and boundaries - that's full of risk but important if they are to become fully-functioning adults. At the same time, parents want their children to be safe. As with most things, we want to edge our bets and have it both ways and that's not always possible. We give young people very mixed messages when it comes to 'risk taking' behaviour. From a very early age we encourage children to get out there and push themselves out of their comfort zone (e.g., taking their first steps unassisted, riding a bike without training wheels, swimming across a pool) and think nothing of it. In fact, parents take great pride in this type of behaviour. We know that's how kids learn, by taking risks and doing things they have ne