Primary-school children in some 20 inner-city schools across Kingston and St Andrew are to be drafted into a new national programme aimed at discouraging drug use among very young students.

The programme, which started on February 5, is geared towards countering the growing trend of young children being lured into early drug abuse.

The pilot programme, dubbed READ (Resistance Education Against Drugs), will now target schoolchildren at the grade one level (ages five to eight) and will be slotted in alongside existing Family Life and Prevention Education Programmes in many schools.

Executive director of the National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA), Michael Tucker, said the initiative was crucial.

Prevention programmes

"The reality is that we have to start prevention programmes early. All our surveys show that Jamaican children are experimenting earlier with addictive substances," he said.

Statistics from the drug abuse monitoring agency have reportedly shown a trend of early drug use, with children as young as 11 years (grade seven) already using hard drugs.

"We are seeing the proof behind troublesome data," said Ellen Campbell Grizzle, NCDA's information director. "Our children are exposed to addictive substances, legal and illegal, at a very early age."

Researchers have long held that early experimentation with drugs increases the risk of addiction among youth and reduces their chances of recovery.

Tucker said the agency was, however, in need of support, in the face of very limited resources.

Financial support

"We are working to reduce the number of our children who initiate drug use at such early ages. With limited resources, we are holding the hands of our children, teachers and parents and lifting up Jamaica," Tucker explained. "We need financial support to expand our programmes and would welcome private-sector partnership."

Donations to the NCDA are tax-deductible.

Under the pilot programme, 10 students from each school and their teachers, are invited periodically to engage in interactive workshops designed to 'strengthen the skills of children to make correct choices and improve their resistance to drug offers'.

The pilot ends in Drug Awareness Month, November, with more than 200 students set to benefit.