Dark Mofo artist Leon Ewing suggests high school students use drugs to expand creativity

Updated

High school students should be given drugs to fuel their creativity, an artist appearing at Hobart's Dark Mofo festival says.

Leon Ewing, a multimedia artist and education lecturer at Western Australia's Murdoch University, is taking part in the festival's Hothouse project in early June, a 72-hour talkfest aimed at generating ideas about how to improve educational attainment and retention in Tasmania.

"Basically what I'm proposing is the idea of using performance enhancing drugs in education," Mr Ewing said.

"We already prescribe amphetamine-like medication for focus and docility. What if we medicated for creativity?"

His suggestions include giving secondary school-aged students drugs like marijuana or even LSD to "open the mind to greater creativity and lateral thought".

"[Among] young Australians aged between 14 and 24, around 15 per cent have already used cannabis in their life," he said.

"It's not unprecedented. I mean young people are already using consciousness-changing chemicals."

Ewing said the first part of the project would involve community consultation and debate and then the development of a legal framework.

He suggested university students could then be given controlled quantities of mind-altering substances.

Asked whether he was being facetious, Ewing said: "Yes and no. In my work as an artist, we need to ask the big questions."

"Currently our Government's thinking on education is to spend millions of dollars putting chaplains in schools," he said.

"That's people who actually believe in Bronze Age sky wizards and magical power. This idea is no more fantastical than that."

Dark Mofo's curator Leigh Carmichael acknowledged it was a controversial position.

"We don't necessarily agree with this idea but we love that it's brave and creative," he said.

Drug Education Network state manager Ronnie Voigt said Mr Ewing's ideas were misplaced and misinformed.

"[It] doesn't sit well with anyone who understands child development and how young people develop and their capacity to think and to explore and to create really good skills as they grow older.

Topics: drugs-and-substance-abuse, carnivals-and-festivals, hobart-7000, tas, murdoch-university-6150

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