You are asking some very good questions, Lightbrite. I don’t know all of the answers. I think that most Jewish adults know about the effects of drug use even if they don’t know all of the details. It is hard not to know about it in a day and age when unfortunately, we constantly hear of kids o.ding. Also, there have been articles on the topic published in the Frum magazines.
There was an article (I think in Mishpacha, but it could have been Binah) last year about drug abuse. The article did describe the effects, and I learned a lot of things from it that I had not necessarily been aware of. For example, it discused the issue of brain damage. There were interviews with kids who had been drug abusers and were now “clean” but had suffered irreparable damage.
So there definitely is a lot of awareness in recent years, at least as far as the adults. In terms of the kids, I do not know whether or not the schools teach it. I think that nowadays, everyone knows about kids-at-risk and drugs, etc. No matter how insulated kids are, it is pretty hard not to be aware of these issues nowadays.
I do not know whether or not kids know about all of the specific damages and effects caused by drugs. BUT, everyone knows that they are seriously problematic. And in the Frum world, it is a given that it is considered BAD to take drugs. The only kids who use drugs in the Frum world are kids with major issues who are taking the drugs out of desperation.
I am pretty sure that these kids know how bad drugs are, and that a course explaining how bad they are would not help. I was at a bus stop once, and a teenage boy (who appeared to be at-risk) was smoking. An elderly lady pointed out to him that smoking is unhealthy. His response was “Lady, I am not smoking because I think it is healthy.”
Frum kids do not take drugs because they think they are healthy. They take drugs out of desperation because they have problems that are not being resolved.
The Frum world is dealing with this issue by trying to find ways to resolve their problems as well as to take preemptive measures so that these problems don’t come about in the first place. Mentoring programs, therapy, educational help, etc. are the ways that the Frum world is trying to resolve these problems.
In terms of alcohol abuse, both adults and kids are aware of the problems. That is why most Frum people generally refrain from too much alchohol use, and only use it on specific occasions, and even then it is generally pretty limited.
Those are the answers to your questions to the best of my knowledge.