BENCHMARKS IN DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION

Students should know and understand the following concepts:

Kindergarten to Grade 2:

- - Know the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods. - Can identify
poisonous and harmful substances commonly found in the home. - Can explain
that prescription medicines are drugs that can help the person for whom
they are meant but that can harm anyone else - especially children, who
must stay away from them.

By Grade 3:

- - How food, poisons, medicines and illegal drugs differ. - Prescribed
medicines are for sick people only. - Why adults may drink but children may
not, even small amounts - it's harmful to children's developing brains and
body.

By Grade 7:

- - The ability to resist drug use peer pressure. - The negative impact of
drug use. - The immediate effects of alcohol, tobacco and drug use on
different parts of the body, including risks of coma or fatal overdose. -
The long-term consequences - how and why drugs are especially dangerous for
growing bodies. - The problems that alcohol and other illegal drugs cause
not only to the user, but the user's family and world. - Student can
describe healthy habits - e.g. exercise, proper nutrition, hygiene, stress
management. - Healthy use of medication. - Dangers of smoking.

By Grade 10:

- - The ability to resist drug use peer pressure. - The negative impact of
drug use. - The short-term effects of tobacco and marijuana use - bad
breath, stained teeth. - The long-term effects of drug use - lack of
crucial social and emotional skills ordinarily learned during adolescence;
the risk of lung cancer and emphysema from smoking, fatal or crippling car
accidents and liver damage from heavy drinking; addiction, brain coma and
death.

By Grade 12:

- - The ability to resist drug use pressure. - How alcohol, tobacco and other
drug consumption during pregnancy has been linked with birth defects in
newborns. - The potentially deadly effects of combining drugs. - How drug
use can ruin chances of getting into university, being accepted by the
military or being hired for certain jobs. - Understand the difference
between medically used marijuana and illegal use. - Possess a strong
understanding of the dangers of substance abuse.