ABSTRACT
Drug educators report reaching students by examining their values. Instead of focusing exclusively on drugs, they involve young people in looking at their total lives. A drug educator, like other instructors, cannot communicate any content without a process and similarly, cannot employ any process without some committment to content. The students are regrettably dependent on such factors as dynamics of groups, social and moral influences, perceived pressures from the educator to guide them in proffering an opinion. “Ethical relativism” has extensive consequences for drug education programs. Despite the abundant references to relativism and individualism throughout the literature, however, several of the recommended strategies and exercises, covertly or otherwise, rely on peer pressure. One of the most popular exercises of the approach is “values-voting” which involves having students indicate publicly their position vis-à-vis drug related issues. Values clarification neither engages the individual in abstract thinking about his or her choices nor assists in identifying the moral dimensions of value conflicts.
