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Show Last Two Phases of Utah Drug Survey Completed by State Final statistics representing rep-resenting the views and attitudes of some 30.000 public school students towards the drug scene in Utah were released this week by the Utah State Board of Education. Educat-ion. The data was taken from a statewide survey conducted last spring among 29 school districts dist-ricts and 58 secondary-schools. secondary-schools. Purpose of the survey was to update state educators about the Utah drug scene in order to improve programs pro-grams which deal with drugs and the public schools. According to Robert L. Leake, Health and P.E. Specialist with the State Board, the assessment assess-ment covered three different dif-ferent phases or areas. Data from the first phase, which assessed students' non-use or experimentation ex-perimentation with drugs, was released last month. The last two phases of the survey questioned students about their attitudes at-titudes towards and knowledge about drugs. The phase dealing with student attitudes and values towards drugs and drug abuse asked students to respond res-pond to sixty statements about drugs. The general gen-eral conclusion based on the responses is that the majority of Utah students stu-dents are overwhelmingly overwhelm-ingly opposed to nonmedical non-medical drug usage and abuse. In fact, more than seventy per cent of the students who responded to the survey took a negative view of drug usage. Eighty-three per cent of the students who were queried during the survey felt that "drugs should only be taken when prescribed by a doctor for a specific medical condition." Student response concerning con-cerning marijuana revealed re-vealed that only 9 per cent felt that "smoking marijuana helps youth deal constructively with their emotional problems." prob-lems." Seventy-five per cent of the students rejected re-jected the legalization I of marijuana. Concerning the causes of drug abuse and use among both young and adults. 77 per cent of the students felt that "the lack of love and affection' in the home was a contributing factor. fact-or. An overwhelming S4 per cent of the students agreed that "youths should refuse to accept a dare to experiment with drugs." 82 per cent also judged that heroin pushers are criminals who deserve to be punished. pun-ished. The last phase of the survey included fifu-. fifu-. five questions which tested the students' knowledge about drugs. Drug knowledge among the students was examined ex-amined in eight different differ-ent categories: history of drugs, why drugs are used and abused, recognition rec-ognition and classification classific-ation of drugs, how drugs are used and abused, ab-used, the physiological effects of drugs, drug jargon, drug laws, and treatment and rehabilitation. rehabil-itation. Students displayed an adequate knowledge about drugs in only one of the eight categories. Responding in the area of "how drugs are used and abused," 83 per cent of the responses were correct. In the other seven categories, however, how-ever, the correct responses re-sponses were 54 per cent or lower. In the area of historical histor-ical background, for instance, in-stance, only 35 per cent of the answers were correct. The category relating to the physiol-ogicaly physiol-ogicaly effects of drugs received a 46 per cent correct response. |