PARTICIPATE IN NIDA NATIONAL DRUG AND ALCOHOL FACTS WEEK
Each year, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse team up to facilitate National Alcohol and Drugs Fact Week (NADFW), which promotes events and campaigns organized by and for youth to learn about drugs. The week includes an online chat where students can ask hard-hitting questions about drugs of NIDA experts. This year, NADFW will take place January 22-27, 2019. Learn more about NADFW by viewing their online guide and/or checking out the fact sheet. As SSDP continues to build our team of rockstar Peer Educators through our Just Say Know Peer Education Program, we are participating in NADFW – SSDP style – by educating ourselves and others, promoting Just Say Know, organizing harm reduction education-based events, and blowing up social media.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Each one of you can participate in making sure youth voices are heard about what drug education should look like by completing some of these activities!
Become an SSDP Certified Peer Educator: This will provide you with all you need to know to become trained as an SSDP Peer Educator and present educational Just Say Know presentations on campus that will fit within the scope of NADFW during that week.
Plan an event Earn 20 CAT points in the Training and Education category
This is a great opportunity to present Just Say Know Modules at your school or host another type of harm-reduction-based event! Contact Vilmarie if you need help or ideas. NIDA is looking for events that relate to the following topics: Alcohol; College-aged and young adults; drugged driving; marijuana; MDMA; opioids and other prescription drugs; teens in the juvenile justice system; tobacco, nicotine, & e-cigarettes; and new psychoactive substances (synthetics).
Register your event Earn an additional 10 CAT points if you get your event registered as a Students for Sensible Drug Policy chapter on NIDA’s website
If you plan an event, be sure to register it through NIDA’s event map program so your event can be featured on the map! Be sure to note that you are a chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy when you register!
Attend an event Bring harm reduction materials to the event for distribution and earn 1 CAT point per person reached
Unable to plan an event of your own? Check out the NADFW event map to find an event near you!
Chat with NIDA experts Earn 10 CAT points by successfully registering for the chat and asking a question On Thursday, January 24 from 8 am to 6 pm EST, NIDA experts will be answering questions from students. To get a chance to ask a question, you must register here: https://www.nidachat.org/register.aspx Chapters can register together and follow the chat on the 24th! Tips for NIDA chat questions:
- Be sure to use well-framed, open-ended questions that force a thoughtful answer
- Avoid asking about policy-related things, as you may get canned responses or risk your question not getting answered
- Focus on questions related to the science behind drugs and drug use, as this is the expertise of the folks responding to questions
- Do ask about harm reduction practices as we want to get them on the record discussing Harm Reduction
- For example, you could ask non-policy related questions about drug checking, because their answers about molly/MDMA/ecstasy last year did not address this issue.
- Do ask questions on stigma and drug use as we want to get them on the record talking about how drug users are stigmatized
- Ask questions about New Psychoactive Substances (NPS)
- Ask questions related to college-aged students, as much of the NADFW seems to be geared toward younger students, though many colleges and universities participate on some level.
- Ask about recent psychedelic medicine research related to mental health conditions
- For more question ideas, take a look at the transcript from the 2017 chat, or review their most frequently asked questions.
Social media If you are completing or starting the SSDP Just Say Know Peer Education Training Curriculum as part of your action for National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week, you may tweet the following:
This Nat’l Drug & Alcohol Facts Week I’m becoming a @SSDP Peer Educator & teaching my peers to #JustSayKnow! @NIDAnews @NIAAAnews #NDAFW
If you are unable to complete the training now but want to support our efforts, you may tweet/post the following:
This Nat’l Drug & Alcohol Facts Week, I wanna learn to #JustSayKnow & #StartMakingSense with @SSDP! #NDAFW @NIDAnews @NIAAAnews
If you are already an SSDP certified Peer Educator, kudos! You may tweet the following:
This Nat’l Drug & Alcohol Facts Week, I’ll be teaching my peers to #JustSayKnow & #StartMakingSense with @SSDP! #NDAFW @NIDAnews @NIAAAnews
For Facebook, be sure to tag the national Students for Sensible Drug Policy page and the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s facebook page, and link to our Peer Education website: ssdp.org/justsayknow Also be sure to promote your events through social media using the following hashtags and tags!
- Use #NDAFW, #JustSayKnow, and #StartMakingSense in your tweets and posts
- Mention @SSDP, @NIDAnews, and @NIAAAnews in tweets or tag them in posts
- Link to the SSDP Just Say Know Peer Education webpage, ssdp.org/justsayknow
- For Facebook, tag the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
For further questions about how you or your chapter can get involved, or for help in planning your NADFW event, please contact vilmarie@ssdp.org!
