Scholar bats for 'attractive alternatives' to lower number of drug users

A scholar on Friday discussed how "attractive alternatives" could decrease drug use in the society.

"You can disrupt, stop, decrease drug use simply by having available to drug users attractive alternatives," said Dr. Carl Hart, chairman of the Department of Psychology at Columbia University, in a forum in Quezon City.

Hart, who has published more than 100 scientific articles in the area of neuropsychopharmacology, cited an experiment they did in early 2000.

"We brought people into the lab who use shabu, we gave them options between shabu and 20 dollars so they had 20 dollars as an attractive option versus shabu," he said.

He said the people chose money over shabu.

Hart, however, pointed out that the lack of attractive alternatives is not the only reason why people become addicted to drugs.

"Attractive alternatives are important. But they're not the only reason people become addicted to drugs. People become addicted to drugs because of other reasons such as co-occuring illnesses," Hart said.

He also mentioned "lack of responsibility skills" as one of the possible causes of drug use.

Drug Abuse Prevention Education

Hart also noted the importance of "comprehensive assessment" as well as being well-educated in order to curb drug problems in the society.

"Comprehensive assessment is the most important thing. You have to do a comprehensive assessment to figure out what is going on with a person," Hart said.

In drug prevention, Hart emphasized that the most important question one has to asked is: What are you trying to prevent?

He also suggested having facilities for "free drug purity testing."

"People can hurt themselves with impurities. You can also implement free drug testing sites to make sure that drugs are pure," Hart said.

Preventing all drug use, not feasible

The notion that drug use could be prevented in the society is not practical, according to Hart.

"Humans have always used drugs. Humans will always use drugs," he said.

"I would suggest that we focus on preventing drug abuse. That means, you have actually provide education and the education has to be evidence-based," Hart said, as he noted that drug use is different from drug abuse. —KBK, GMA News