Episode 13: The Opposite of D.A.R.E – DPA Launches New High School Drug Education Curriculum in a NYC School

Drugs and Stuff: A Podcast from the Drug Policy Alliance

Remember last year when we sat down with DPA’s Marsha Rosenbaum to talk about what drug education should look like for young people? If you missed it, check out that great conversation from Episode 05 when Marsha explained the history of “Safety First,” a DPA project that was dedicated to providing honest, reality-based information to parents for when they talk to their teens about using drugs. That project has now grown and evolved into a high school curriculum for 9th and 10th grade health classes, and it’s being piloted right now at Bard High School Early College Manhattan. For the first time ever in a U.S. public school, students are receiving a science and harm reduction-based education about drugs.

In this episode we get an inside look and talk about the rollout of DPA’s historic and revolutionary drug education curriculum with Sasha Simon, DPA’s Safety First Program Manager, and Drew Miller, the health teacher from Bard High School Early College Manhattan who is teaching the “Safety First” curriculum.