Module 5 Overview Context Content Area: Policy Decisions about Drug Use/Abuse Issues

1. Module 5 Overview Context Content Area: Policy Decisions about Drug Use/Abuse Issues Essential Question (Generic): What should be done when preventable causes of disease are found? Essential Question (Drug Abuse Specific): What should be done when preventable causes of drug abuse are found? Enduring Epidemiological Understanding: Policy decisions are based on more than the scientific evidence. Because of competing values - social, economic, ethical, environmental, cultural, and political factors may also be considered. Synopsis: In Module 5, students explore specific drug policy questions and become aware of the factors that influence their own and others' positions on those questions. Lessons: Lesson 5-1: Individual and Societal Decision Making Lesson 5-2: Drug Policy Question - Should needle exchange programs be implemented? Lesson 5-3: Drug Policy Question - Should high school students be drug tested? Lesson 5-4: Drug Policy Question - Should D.A.R.E. be taught in all schools? Lesson 5-5: Drug Policy Question - Should marijuana be legal for medical purposes?

2. Module 5 - Policy Decisions about Drug Use/Abuse • Lesson 5-1 Individual and Societal Decision Making • Content • How scientific literacy is connected to individual and societal decision-making • Definitions and discussion about policy, risk perception and the acceptability or unacceptability of risk • Big Ideas • In a democratic society, a scientifically literate population is better able to make informed decisions about issues of public health • Societal decisions about acceptability versus unacceptability of risk often consider other factors besides the actual magnitude of that risk

3. Where are we? Essential Questions Enduring Understandings

4. Individual and Societal Decision Making Enduring Understanding Policy decisions are based on more than the scientific evidence. Because of competing values – social, economic, ethical, environmental, cultural, and political factors may also be considered.

5. Individual and Societal Decision Making Policy A course or principle of action adopted or proposed by a government, party, business, or individual John M. Last, A Dictionary of Public Health

6. Individual and Societal Decision Making Policy A course or principle of action adopted or proposed by agovernment, party, business, orindividual John M. Last, A Dictionary of Public Health

7. Individual and Societal Decision Making Drug Policy A course or principle of action adopted or proposed by agovernment, party, business, orindividual that affectsdrug use

8. Individual and Societal Decision Making Government by the people; especially rule of the majority A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections Democracy http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/democracy

9. Individual and Societal Decision Making Democracy Philosopher - King

10. Individual and Societal Decision Making Democracy Citizen - Kings / Citizen - Queens “It is both the glory and the burden of democracy that lay citizens must make the final choice.”

11. Individual and Societal Decision Making Risk The probability that an event will occur John M. Last, A Dictionary of Public Health

12. Individual and Societal Decision Making Risk Perception One’s feeling or opinion about the existence or size of a risk One’s estimate of the likelihood that an undesirable consequence, associated with some activity, will occur within a period of time John M. Last, A Dictionary of Public Health

13. Individual and Societal Decision Making Acceptable Risk The degree to which an individual or society is willing to tolerate the existence of something that poses a danger John M. Last, A Dictionary of Public Health

14. Individual and Societal Decision Making Unacceptable Risk The degree to which an individual or society is unwilling to tolerate the existence of something that poses a danger

15. Individual and Societal Decision Making Unacceptable Risk You would be hard-pressed to explain the taxonomy of chemicals underpinning the drug war to an extraterrestrial. Pollan, Michael. “The Way We Live Now: A Very Fine Line,” New York Times Magazine, September 12, 1999

16. Individual and Societal Decision Making Unacceptable Risk Is it, for example, addictiveness that causes this society to condemn a drug? (No; nicotine is legal, and millions of Americans have battled addictions to prescription drugs.) Pollan, Michael. “The Way We Live Now: A Very Fine Line,” New York Times Magazine, September 12, 1999

17. Individual and Societal Decision Making Unacceptable Risk Is it, for example, addictiveness that causes this society to condemn a drug? (No; nicotine is legal, and millions of Americans have battled addictions to prescription drugs.) So then, our inquisitive alien might ask, is safety the decisive factor? (Not really; over-the-counter and prescription drugs kill more than 45,000 Americans every year while, according to The New England Journal of Medicine, "There is no risk of death from smoking marijuana.") Pollan, Michael. “The Way We Live Now: A Very Fine Line,” New York Times Magazine, September 12, 1999

18. Individual and Societal Decision Making Unacceptable Risk Is it, for example, addictiveness that causes this society to condemn a drug? (No; nicotine is legal, and millions of Americans have battled addictions to prescription drugs.) So then, our inquisitive alien might ask, is safety the decisive factor? (Not really; over-the-counter and prescription drugs kill more than 45,000 Americans every year while, according to The New England Journal of Medicine, "There is no risk of death from smoking marijuana.") Is it drugs associated withviolent behavior that your society condemns? (If so, alcohol would still be illegal.) Pollan, Michael. “The Way We Live Now: A Very Fine Line,” New York Times Magazine, September 12, 1999

19. Individual and Societal Decision Making Unacceptable Risk Is it, for example, addictiveness that causes this society to condemn a drug? (No; nicotine is legal, and millions of Americans have battled addictions to prescription drugs.) So then, our inquisitive alien might ask, is safety the decisive factor? (Not really; over-the-counter and prescription drugs kill more than 45,000 Americans every year while, according to The New England Journal of Medicine, "There is no risk of death from smoking marijuana.") Is it drugs associated withviolent behavior that your society condemns? (If so, alcohol would still be illegal.) Perhaps, then, it is the promise ofpleasure that puts a drug beyond the pale? (That would once again rule out alcohol, as well as Viagra.) Pollan, Michael. “The Way We Live Now: A Very Fine Line,” New York Times Magazine, September 12, 1999

20. Individual and Societal Decision Making Unacceptable Risk Is it, for example, addictiveness that causes this society to condemn a drug? (No; nicotine is legal, and millions of Americans have battled addictions to prescription drugs.) So then, our inquisitive alien might ask, is safety the decisive factor? (Not really; over-the-counter and prescription drugs kill more than 45,000 Americans every year while, according to The New England Journal of Medicine, "There is no risk of death from smoking marijuana.") Is it drugs associated withviolent behavior that your society condemns? (If so, alcohol would still be illegal.) Perhaps, then, it is the promise ofpleasure that puts a drug beyond the pale? (That would once again rule out alcohol, as well as Viagra.) Then maybe the molecules you despise are the ones that alter the texture of consciousness, or even a human's personality? (Tell that to someone who has been saved from depression by Prozac.) Pollan, Michael. “The Way We Live Now: A Very Fine Line,” New York Times Magazine, September 12, 1999

21. Individual and Societal Decision Making Unacceptable Risk Is it, for example, addictiveness that causes this society to condemn a drug? (No; nicotine is legal, and millions of Americans have battled addictions to prescription drugs.) So then, our inquisitive alien might ask, is safety the decisive factor? (Not really; over-the-counter and prescription drugs kill more than 45,000 Americans every year while, according to The New England Journal of Medicine, "There is no risk of death from smoking marijuana.") Is it drugs associated withviolent behavior that your society condemns? (If so, alcohol would still be illegal.) Perhaps, then, it is the promise ofpleasure that puts a drug beyond the pale? (That would once again rule out alcohol, as well as Viagra.) Then maybe the molecules you despise are the ones that alter the texture of consciousness, or even a human's personality? (Tell that to someone who has been saved from depression by Prozac.) Pollan, Michael. “The Way We Live Now: A Very Fine Line,” New York Times Magazine, September 12, 1999

22. Individual and Societal Decision Making Drug Policy Questions

23. Individual and Societal Decision Making Scientific Literacy A scientifically literate person is someone who: … can ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences  … has the ability to describe, explain, and predict natural phenomenon  … is able to read with understanding articles about science in the popular press and to engage in social conversation about the validity of their conclusions  … can identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed  … (is) able to evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it  … (has) the capacity to pose and evaluate arguments based on evidence and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately National Research Council.  (1996)  National Science Education Standards, Washington, DC:  National Academy Press.

24. Individual and Societal Decision Making Enduring Understanding Policy decisions are based on more than the scientific evidence. Because of competing values – social, economic, ethical, environmental, cultural, and political factors may also be considered. Drug Policy Question Assignment

25. Individual and Societal Decision Making Pre – Drug Policy Question Assignment Survey

26. Individual and Societal Decision Making Needle Exchange Programs

27. Individual and Societal Decision Making Drug Policy Question Position Should needle exchange programs be implemented?

28. Individual and Societal Decision Making Enduring Understanding Policy decisions are based on more than the scientific evidence. Because of competing values; social, economic, ethical, environmental, cultural, and political factors may also be considered.

29. Re-Cap • Big Ideas in this Lesson (5-1) • In a democratic society, a scientifically literate population is better able to make informed decisions about issues of public health • Societal decisions about acceptability versus unacceptability of risk often consider other factors besides the actual magnitude of that risk

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