Opioid Education: New Hampshire Proposes Mandatory Drug Prevention Classes In All Grades To Curb Opioid Crisis

The state of New Hampshire is pushing to make drug prevention classes mandatory on all grade levels. In the drive to curb the crisis on opioid addiction, officials believe teaching drug dependency and alcohol early in children will be the answer. As it is, there are already similar drug education programs in place in the United States, but the state would like to impose on a few changes to improve this.

New Hampshire's drug problem is a growing concern as the state has the third highest drug poisoning rate in the country. At least 334 locals have died due to drug overdose in 2014 and the rate of opioid addiction is higher in the state (10.5 percent) than the rest of the country (9.5 percent), per the United States Department of Agriculture.

https://t.co/QARor003HX Leading cause of drug overdose deaths in New Hampshire in 2014 was fentanyl laced drugs. #2015

— Manchester NEWS (@MachesterNews) May 10, 2016

There are already 28 middle and high schools with drug prevention education programs in New Hampshire, which are usually taught in health classes. It has been patterned after Project SUCCESS or Schools Using Coordinated Community Efforts to Strengthen Students, which supposedly helps kids master life skills. Project SUCCESS has a specific module for teaching adolescents about alcohol, tobacco and drugs, per its official site.

#KnowledgeIsPower Opioid crisis adds urgency to drug prevention education: CONCORD, N.H. - As New Hampshire c... https://t.co/pp69nQfYhA

— Tha voices (@thavoices2) May 15, 2016

But officials would like to introduce more classes about drug prevention in students as early as kindergarten. Officials are also studying the drug prevention education programs already initiated by the Senate and the House to see where changes can be made. The proposal is to increase classes to at least two to four hours in a year in younger students, especially since addiction can begin with kids as young as 12, per the Eagle Tribune.

"The way to do prevention is with prevention-prepared communities - communities that get together and give evidence-based prevention messages from the schools, from the police, from the church, everywhere," said Thomas McLellan who was the former head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy during a summit on drug misuse.

Do you support this plan? Would the implementation of this across other states work as well? Sound off in the comments!