Children: Drugs

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

Drug education is a statutory part of the new curriculum for science at key stages 2 and 3. Teachers are best placed to understand the needs of their pupils and it is for them to develop their own PSHE programmes, drawing on resources and evidence-based tools such as ADEPIS, which provides accurate, up-to-date information and resource on what works. In March last year, we published a PSHE review of what works best in drug education and the PSHE Association has an excellent programme of study on drugs.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, does the PSHE curriculum include comparisons of the health harms of drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, heroin, cocaine and cannabis, including the numbers of people who die every year from their use? If the Minister does not have the figures to hand, I would be grateful if he wrote to me.

[Lord Nash]

My understanding is that this programme of study is very comprehensive, but I will write specifically to the noble Baroness on this.