Two voices better than one at telling adolescents about the effects of methamphetamine

The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health and Scholastic, the global children's publishing and media company, have joined forces to distribute information about the damaging health effects of methamphetamine to nearly 2 million middle- and high-school students and their teachers. The effects of the drug will be covered in an article in the fall issues of Scholastic Classroom Magazines' Junior Scholastic, Science World, CHOICES, SCOPE, ACTION, and UPFRONT during the 2005-2006 school year.

Other subjects to be covered in the article include inhalants, prescription drugs, and drugs that may be encountered in social settings. This is the fourth year that NIDA and Scholastic have teamed up to create the outreach program to middle school and early high school students and teachers with the Heads Up: Real News About Drugs and Your Body series for the classroom.

Free copies of the articles will be available from the National Clearninghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information (NCADI) in December 2005. Furthermore, free compilations of both student and teacher inserts from the first two years of the program will be available from the NCADI in December, while inserts from the third year will be available in late spring 2006.

Information on these and other NIDA scientific education initiatives can be found on the NIDA Web site, www.backtoschool.drugabuse.gov and www.teens.drugabuse.gov. For more information on NIDA, visit www.drugabuse.gov. For more information about Heads Up: Real News About Drugs and Your Body, visit www.scholastic.com/headsup.