Sex & Drugs

The first half of this post is probably going to feel a little bit basic and obvious.  Stick with it until the end, I promise there is a point to it.

Sex can be dangerous. It’s more likely to be dangerous for teenagers than it is for adults, but it can be dangerous for adults too. Sex is fraught with emotional, psychological, and physical danger. Sex can traumatize people. Sex can cause the spread of diseases, some of them incurable and some of them fatal. Sex can be used to manipulate people into doing things that they would never otherwise consider doing. People can become addicted to sex in a way that interferes with leading a healthy and productive life. Sex sometimes comes with permanently life-altering consequences. Many people even believe that premarital sex is inherently morally wrong, perhaps even evil.

Despite (or perhaps because of) all these dangers, I suspect that most of you believe that sex education is an extremely important part of life. If you believe in abstinence-only sex education then I would encourage you to take a moment to look into the statistics about teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and other easily measurable metrics. I think you’ll find that in nearly every way, communities with robust sex education programs fare far better than communities that teach abstinence-only. I’ll continue with this post under the assumption that you agree that abstinence-only sex education is a bad idea.

There are a couple ideas that are key to the importance of sex education. First, you cannot stop teenagers from having sex. People naturally want to explore their bodies and the idea of sex is so enticing that whether you prohibit it or teach people about it, some people are going to do it.

Second, we have techniques that can make sex safer. While there is no way to remove all risk from sex, we can make it considerably safer by teaching people about things like condoms and other forms of birth control. We can have honest discussions with teenagers about the risks of sex and what it means to be ready to have sex. We can let them know that they don’t have to be ashamed or embarrassed if they have a problem involving sex. There are people and resources available to help them navigate the problem, whatever it may be. We can teach people how to identify the warning signs of a medical problem like pregnancy or STIs and teach them how to properly respond if they think something is wrong.

Given those first two assumptions – people are going to do it anyway and we know how to make it less dangerous – it becomes a moral imperative that we provide young people with open and honest sex education.

One of the main arguments against providing sex education is that it would give teenagers license to have sex. It would encourage teenagers who would otherwise abstain, to be promiscuous. The assumption is that this would inevitably lead to more negative outcomes. Most of us recognize that unless you view premarital sex as an innately negative outcome (and perhaps even if you do view premarital sex as an innately negative outcome), these arguments simply do not hold water. In addition to common sense, statistics tell us that abstinence-only programs lead to higher instances of negative outcomes.

For most of my the folks reading this, the ideas above are probably well understood and not very controversial. The reason I wrote this was not to try to convince you of the dangers of abstinence-only programs or the need for good education programs about sex. I wrote this to try to convince you about the dangers of abstinence-only programs and the need for good education programs about drugs. Bear with me for this little thought experiment. I’m going to copy and paste my arguments above and replace sex with drugs.

Drug use can be dangerous. It’s more likely to be dangerous for teenagers than it is for adults, but it can be dangerous for adults too. Drug use is fraught with emotional, psychological, and physical danger. Drug use can traumatize people. Drug use can cause the spread of diseases, some of them incurable and some of them fatal. Drugs can be used to manipulate people into doing things that they would never otherwise consider doing. People can become addicted to drugs in a way that interferes with leading a healthy and productive life. Drug use sometimes comes with permanently life-altering consequences. Many people even believe that drug use is inherently morally wrong, perhaps even evil.

There are a couple ideas that are key to the importance of drug education. First, you cannot stop teenagers from using drugs. People naturally want to explore their minds and the idea of drug use is so enticing that whether you prohibit it or teach people about it, some people are going to do it.

Second, we have techniques that can make drug use safer. While there is no way to remove all risk from drug use, we can make it considerably safer by teaching people about things like safe consumption practices and the way different drugs interact with one another. We can have honest discussions with teenagers about the risks of drug use and what it means to be ready to try drugs. We can let them know that they don’t have to be ashamed or embarrassed if they have a problem involving drugs. There are people and resources available to help them navigate the problem, whatever it may be. We can teach people how to identify the warning signs of a medical problem like overdose or withdrawal symptoms and teach them how to properly respond if they think something is wrong.

Given those first two assumptions – people are going to do it anyway and we know how to make it less dangerous – it becomes a moral imperative that we provide young people with open and honest drug education.

We have had our minds so thoroughly poisoned about the very idea of drug use that many otherwise rational, compassionate people insist that the only answer to drug use is to ban it and not talk about it. These are the worst things we can do with sex and they are similarly the worst things we can do with drugs. Do you agree, disagree, think I’m missing some key factor that differentiates sex from drug use? Let me know in the comments. If you want to see drug education become part of how we prepare our young people to enter the world, I hope you’ll consider supporting organizations like Students for Sensible Drug Policy.