This document discusses approaches to drug prevention and education. It covers the goals of prevention, who is responsible, funding sources, and effectiveness of different programs. School-based programs that incorporate social skills training over multiple years with parent and community involvement have been shown to be most effective in preventing drug use. Effective drug education programs provide developmentally appropriate information, teach social resistance skills, address social norms, and involve interactive teaching techniques.

1. Albia Dugger • Miami Dade College
Chapter 16
Drug Prevention
and Education

2. Approaches to Prevent Drug Abuse
• What should be the goals of drug education and prevention?
• When should drug education and prevention efforts be
initiated?
• What education and prevention efforts are effective?
• Who should be responsible for drug education and
prevention?

3. Funding Drug Prevention
• In the US, most funds for drug prevention come from the
federal government
• 2012 National Drug Control Budget: $1.7 billion was allocated
to drug prevention out of a budget of $26.2 billion
• Most community leaders favor spending a larger portion on
reducing demand rather than supply of drugs

4. Agencies
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA) is responsible for:
• Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP)
• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
(NIAAA),
• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
• Office of Treatment Improvement
• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

5. Drug Prevention in Retrospect
• 1970s: Primary focus was to reduce the supply of drugs by
stopping their importation, sale, and manufacture
• Interdiction remains a popular strategy but now is
complemented by other measures
• 1980s: Some drug experts began to contend that prevention
should be directed toward the underlying factors that
contribute to drug abuse

6. Drug Prevention in Retrospect
• Society was concerned primarily with hard drugs such as
heroin, LSD, cocaine, crack, and PCP
• Soft drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana are
known as gateway drugs
• The primary strategy of CSAP is to keep young people from
experimenting with drugs at all

7. Effectiveness of Prevention Programs
• Problems in assessing effectiveness of programs:
• Absence of control groups
• Poor data collection
• Groups that are too small
• Inappropriate statistics
• Lack of followup to determine how long any change in
drug use persisted

8. School-Based Programs
• Five essential criteria:
1. Adequate hours of curricula, over at least three years
2. Peer involvement
3. Emphasis on social influences, life skills, and peer
resistance
4. Change in perceived norms
5. Involvement of parents, peers, and the community in
changing norms

9. Goals of Drug Prevention
• To prevent the individual from beginning drug use
• To minimize the risks of drugs to the user
• To reduce the risks of drug use to society
• To prevent drug dependency
• To teach responsible drug use
• To stop drug use after patterns have been established
• To delay the onset of drug use

10. Levels of Drug Prevention
• Primary prevention:
• Strives to reach people before they start using alcohol,
tobacco, or other drugs
• Should be initiated at a young age because most children
already have tried drugs, especially alcohol, by the time
they get to high school
• Includes drug education, mass media campaigns,
community-oriented programs, drug testing, and
legislation

11. Levels of Drug Prevention
• Secondary prevention:
• Attempts to minimize potential damage resulting from drug
use by targeting people who have experience with drugs.
• Considered an early intervention stage
• Tertiary prevention:
• Geared to heavy drug users and those whose patterns of
drug use are well established
• Basically refers to drug treatment

12. Drug Prevention Continuum

13. Identifying High Risk Youth
• High risk behaviors include:
• Delinquent behavior, self-destructive behaviors, and
dropping out of school
• Risk factors include:
• Individual behavioral factors
• Individual attitudinal factors
• Individual psychosocial factors
• Family factors
• Community environmental factors

14. Drugs and Delinquent Behavior

15. Resilient Children
• Many children from impoverished backgrounds display
resiliency despite the presence of major life stressors
• Characteristics of resilient children:
• Flexible, responsive, adaptable, and active
• Have positive relationships
• Empathetic, caring, persistent, competent problem-
solvers, success oriented, and educationally motivated
• Able to disengage from dysfunctional family environments

16. At-Risk Factors
• Hereditary and Familial Factors:
• Sons of men with alcohol problems are more likely to have
alcohol problems
• Rates of dependence are greater if siblings are dependent
• Family history of antisocial behavior or criminality
increases the risk of drug problems
• Lack of supervision of children after school is related to
drug use

17. At-Risk Factors
• Psychosocial Factors:
• Peer pressure
• Low self-esteem
• Low self-efficacy
• Sensation seeking
• Lack of social skills
• Rebelliousness against authority
• Lack of commitment to school
• Attraction to deviance
• Unfavorable attitudes toward adult behavior

18. At-Risk Factors
• Biological Factors:
• Different amounts of pleasure derived from drugs
• Different amounts of self-control
• Community Factors:
• Communities where people move often
• Extreme poverty and deprivation
• Communities that lack social support and controls
regulating behaviors, including drug use

19. Preventing High-Risk Behavior
• Education:
• Poor school performance and low expectations for school
are strong predictors of drug use
• School alternative programs focusing on community and
recreational activities, physical activities, and job training
help youths at risk to stay off drugs
• Teachers may be role models for helping children to
develop resilience

20. Head Start
• Preschool programs
such as Head Start help
at-risk children

21. Preventing High-Risk Behavior
• Role of parents:
• Parental drug use greatly increases the likelihood of
children’s drug use
• Parents who have high expectations for their children
foster academic success and resilience
• Community efforts:
• Drug use is prevalent in impoverished, urban
neighborhoods
• Jobs have been shown to help curb drug use

22. Preventing High-Risk Behavior
• Barriers to community prevention efforts:
• Leaders’ lack of perceived empowerment to continue
prevention work
• Insufficient preparation for adopting successful programs
• Public resistance to spending more money on drug
prevention programs after ineffective programs
• Idea that programs that are effective in one community will
not necessarily work in other communities

23. Drug Education
• Evolution in Drug Education:
• 1970s: Information about the dangers of drugs
• Mid 1970s: Values clarification focused on the underlying
values contributing to drug use
• Alternatives approach substitutes a positive addiction for
the negative addiction
• More emphasis on health in general and less emphasis on
the pharmacology of drugs
• Current education emphasizes developing resilience skills,
learning peer-refusal techniques, and gaining life skills

24. Limitations of Drug Education
• Problems with Drug Education:
• Teachers often do not keep up with latest information
• Students sometimes know more about drugs than
teachers do
• Some teachers are judgmental or moralistic
• Goals of drug education are often unclear
• Goals of drug education are often unrealistic

25. Goals of Drug Education
• Possible goals:
• To impart knowledge
• Reducing drug abuse or dependency
• Preventing or delaying first-time drug use
• Curtailing students’ drug use
• Teaching responsible drug use

26. One-Size-Fits-All Drug Education
• What Works: Schools Without Drugs Objectives
1. Valuing and maintaining sound personal health and
understanding the effects of drugs on health
2. Respecting laws and rules that prohibit drug use
3. Recognizing and resisting pressure to engage in drug-
taking behavior
4. Promoting activities that reinforce a positive, drug-free
lifestyle

27. Current Approaches to Drug Education
• Personal and Social Skills Training:
• Young people who rate high in self-efficacy are more
likely to avoid harmful patterns of drug use
• Skills training: A drug prevention program in which one
learns skills to prevent drug use
• Includes skills for resisting media and interpersonal
influences, problem-solving and decision-making, relieving
stress and anxiety, relaxation, self-control, self-esteem,
interpersonal relations, and assertiveness

28. Current Approaches to Drug Education
• Social Norms Approach:
• Goal is to correct misperceptions of students and reduce
alcohol use
• Resistance Skills Training:
• Involves recognizing, managing, and avoiding situations
that may encourage drug use

29. Current Approaches to Drug Education
• Drug Prevention Programs:
• Project ALERT has been shown to reduce weekly alcohol
and marijuana use, at-risk drinking, and alcohol use
resulting in negative consequences, as well as attitudes
and perceptions conducive to drug use
• Life Skills Training (LST): students are taught how to
avoid being persuaded by others, to manage anxiety, to
communicate more accurately, to be assertive, and to
enhance their self-esteem

30. Current Approaches to Drug Education
• Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE):
• Police officers go to classrooms and teach elementary
students about drugs and personal safety
• Had little impact on drug use
• Just Say No!
• Adequate for some students, but not for others
• Some students do not recognize peer pressure or have
the skills to refuse drugs

31. DARE improves relationships between
police, children, and schools

32. Effectiveness of Drug Education
• Components of Effective Programs:
• Based on an understanding of theory and research
• Information is developmentally appropriate; short-term,
negative social consequences are emphasized
• Emphasize social resistance skills training
• Includes normative education
• Teachers use interactive teaching techniques
• Teachers receive training and support
• Time devoted is sufficient and continued
• Programs are culturally sensitive.
• School programs include family, community, and media
• Evaluation is necessary to determine effectiveness

33. Health Education
• Drug education at the secondary level typically is taught in
health education classes
• Sequential health education from K through 12th grade had a
positive effect on knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors
• Administrative support and teacher training are important to
the success of health education

34. Peer Programs
• In some, older students teach younger students about drugs
• In other programs, peers facilitate discussions about drugs
with others of the same age, or peers counsel peers
• Besides acting as role models, peer leaders have to be able
to communicate effectively
• Peer programs were most effective with the average student;
for at-risk students, alternative programs were most effective