Free Vibe is a project of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Free Vibe is designed for students to find and share information and stories about drug use. Free Vibe has all of the usual information and scare stories about drug abuse that you would expect to find on an anti-drug campaign. Students can read the story of Len Bias (number two NBA draft pick in 1986 overdosed on cocaine two days later) and other famous people whose lives were cut short by drugs use.

What makes Free Vibe great is that it has the look and feel of the Web 2.0 websites (Facebook, MySpace) that students use in their everyday lives. One of the ways that Free Vibe appeals to students on their level is through widgets or icons that they can embed on their favorite social networking profile. Free Vibe is written in a language and style that will keep kids engaged better than a lot of the other web resources about substance abuse. Free Vibe has discussion boards for students to share their opinions on a variety of questions related to substance use and abuse. Today’s discussion topic is started with this prompt: “What would you say to a student athlete thinking about using steroids?”

In addition to discussion forums and profile tools, Free Vibe has video sharing features. Watch one of the videos below.

Applications for Educators
Free Vibe doesn’t have materials specifically designed for teachers, but it does have a lot of free resources like posters and pamphlets that teachers can use in their classrooms. For those of you maintaining blogs or websites for your classes, Free Vibe has free anti-drug banner ads you can embed into your blog or website.