Pompidou Group

Co-operation Group to Combat Drug Abuse

and Illicit Trafficking in Drugs

Strasbourg, 15 September 2004                                                                    P-PG/Ethics(2004)5

EXPERT COMMITTEE ON

ETHICAL ISSUES AND PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS

Schools and drugs

by René Padieu

www.coe.int/pompidou

Schools and drugs

1.         There is a very wide range of different opinions about drugs.  These may be summarised in three general categories: the view that drugs in themselves are evil, justifying the use of every means to combat them; the view that the problem lies in the social acceptance or otherwise of drugs, which differs according to product, the solution requiring a re-examination of the prohibition; and the view that it is not so much consumption itself which should be combated, but the ensuing risks that should be reduced.

2.         These different positions are connected with the scope of the definition adopted of "drugs" (narcotics, lawful or unlawful psychoactive substances, etc).

3.         These differences in position legitimise the differences in schools’ and parents’ decisions as regards the drugs policies and activities of the schools.

4.         The role of the school is to transmit not only knowledge, but also values.  This includes learning to observe rules.  It may also include learning to examine the basis of such rules and practising the discussions which are part of citizenship.  In the first case, the question arises of whether teaching should cover just rules, or whether it should extend to monitoring their implementation and penalising breaches: should pupils be taught not to use drugs, or should checks be carried out to ensure that they are not using them?  In the second case, the question arises of a balance between imposing a minimum morality on consciences which are still pure and the risk of discrediting rules in advance by leaving them to individuals' discretion.

5.         The absence of drug consumption at school may be regarded as a simple condition for the capacity to attend lessons, or as an idea to be instilled.  In the former case, account should also be taken of the other demands which reduce pupils' assiduousness or attention.  In the latter case, conduct in respect of drugs cannot be detached from the education received in its entirety.

6.         It is not only teachers, but fellow pupils as well, who teach children about lifestyles: fashions in clothes, sports, music, and so on.  Parents choose to send their child to a drugs-free school, not so much because they want the school to supervise their child, but more so that it can guarantee that the child is not mixing with drug users.

7.         Thus a school may define itself as a drugs-free school either as a policy decision or in order to offer that kind of school to parents.  It presents a kind of commercial image, placing it under an obligation to pupils' parents to stick to its decision.  This will inevitably raise questions as to the legitimacy of any action taken by the school to remain drugs-free, such as the carrying out of tests.

8.         The preceding paragraphs (§§ 6 and 7) relate to the institutional status of drugs in the school, as distinct from the question of the attitude towards the pupil in person, particularly when it is intended to subject him or her to a drugs test.  This raises three questions: the significance of the test (§ 9), the legitimacy of the test (§ 10) and the effects of the test (§ 11).

9.         The significance attached to the test result raises several questions itself:

10.       Is the right to subject pupils to testing a violation of their own privacy?  Where minor children are concerned, is this not a matter for their parents (or guardians) to decide?  Or if a test is a consequence of a public policy prohibition, it is legitimate for the state to impose such a violation, but, in that case, this legitimacy is general, and neither limited nor specific to the school.  On the other hand, does education not consist essentially of intervention in the individual's personality?  This would make an investigation legitimate, without the possibility of an objection on the grounds of the inviolability of the pupil's privacy.  This last argument, however, may be limited if we bear in mind the fact that the education provided by the school is specifically intended to form personality, presupposing, even at this stage of formation, at least partial respect for that personality.

11.       Possible consequences of the use of testing:

Law and ethics in the context of drug use in schools

1.1       Schools' vocation seems to exclude drug use.  The idea  of screening might seem to recognise drug use, and consequently indicate either a laissez-faire attitude or a teaching failure.

1.2       If "drugs" are defined as any psychoactive substances used for their effects, there is a problem in distinguishing between what is lawful and what is not.

1.3       The question arises of whether it is drug use itself or the existence of teaching to counter it that is the most important thing to consider in the school context.

1.4       Certain ways of combating drug use might perhaps destabilise the personality the school is charged with forming, and therefore be counter-productive.

2.1       Education in the value of humankind, as expressed by human rights, may give pupils a personality capable of coping with the risks that life brings, including those of the temptation to take drugs.

2.2       While certain drugs have the effect of excluding their users from society and alter personality, others have a "socialising" effect: the rites associated with their use bring the user into a community and a counter-culture, the rejection of which by society at large confirms the user's exclusion.

2.3       As the individual is an independent being, he or she has to cope with drugs and their risks.  However, drug abuse adversely affects judgment and jeopardises personality.  The question arises of whether non-intervention as a matter of principle should give way to action on the grounds that a person who is in danger needs assistance.

2.4       A policy of repression or deterrence is meaningful only in conjunction with an educational policy.

2.5       Education about ethics structures personality, for ethics is about how one conducts oneself.

3.1       Ethics is a social construct which forms part of the history of society.

3.2       Education must transmit ethics, enabling people to play a part in their own society and its history.

3.3       Enjoying rights means belonging to a community which acknowledges that you have those rights.  Holding human rights means having a place in human society, having a community where one has one's place.

3.4       A huge gulf separates the ethics which fits in with human rights from political and social reality.  This gulf has widened because of the way in which human rights have developed since first being proclaimed.  A major political crisis is the result.

3.5       Teachers thus face the tough challenge of getting ethics across successfully.  The drugs issue reveals a shortcoming in the building of personality: teaching is falling well short, and the ensuing human rights crisis is a deep one.

Ethical principles

1.         Unlike morality, which involves complying with certain rules (passed down by tradition or by religion), ethics reflects such rules, their basis and their application.  Personal conscience is involved, as is the thinking which goes on within society.

2.         Ethics lie somewhere between compliance with exogenous rules (laid down by God, a prince or tradition) and a situation of complacency in which each person strives to achieve immediate pleasure and to avoid punishment.

3.         The ethical principles which prevail in Europe stem from three philosophical currents.  Firstly, in the view of Aristotle and his successors, human beings should strive to attain virtue, which must override pleasure and fear.  Secondly, the utilitarian view is that the aim should be the greatest good of everyone, both individually and collectively, this collective maximisation of benefit sometimes necessitating personal restrictions.  And the third is Kant's view that action is good where there is a will to carry out one's duty: this assumes that every person thinks that what he or she hopes for could benefit everyone, his or her own freedom and responsibility existing by reference to this requirement for universality.

4.         These principles presuppose the recognition by every person of other people's preferences and criteria as being of equal value to his or her own, i.e. that the dignity of each person is equal.

5.         Dignity depends on the recognition and protection of life and security, personality, identity, privacy and integrity.

6.         It also depends on each individual's freedom or independence to take his or her own decisions – and particularly to decide about the ethical rules which he or she intends to respect - this freedom nevertheless being subject to resistance from the environment (in the same way as birds can fly only because the air offers them resistance).

7.         Equal dignity requires people to be treated justly (meaning fairly).

8.         The State must simultaneously respect and promote these fundamental human rights, and thus the diverse ways in which individuals take decisions, and to this end ensure that no one person's exercise of rights compromises the same rights for other people.  This maintenance of public order - not so as to restrict rights and freedoms, but, on the contrary, to promote them - because it does not impose a body of predetermined rules, sometimes leads to a state being described as governed by the rule of law, or even as a secular state, meaning that it does not derive such rules from ideological precepts.

9.         While, in the framework of European ethics, human beings are not in the grip of a doctrine and, in contrast, must obey the rules they set for themselves, the problem arises of leaving people free to renounce their freedom.  One of the areas where this question arises is that of the conduct to adopt towards drug users.

10.       If, looking beyond considerable differences, this does seem to be the basis on which European ethics rests, another problem which arises is that of reconciling this tolerance with the ethical views of population groups from other civilisations.