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Suggestions About Alcohol & Drug Abuse Prevention

The prevention of substance abuse, especially among youth, has been of major concern since the 60s; however, many prevention programs are not found to reduce drug use in our youth. The NARCONON drug education curriculum for high school students has been shown to be an exception to that problem, according to an article written in the Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, a professional journal. The NARCONON drug education curriculum for high school students is based on some hypothesis not found in some of the other programs, and include the precepts below.

  1. Double Standard

    • The NARCONON prevention initiative does not recommend the imposition of a double standard between youth and adults. Instead, the program holds that messages indicating some substances are okay for adults, yet harmful to young people, tend to cause young people to want to use the drugs, rather than decrease drug using behavior. It also shows that sending a message that a drug is licit to adults and illicit for young people, causes youth to mistrust, and reject the entire message as being exaggerated or entirely false.

    Marketing

    • The NARCONON prevention program exposes young people to the impact of marketing related to legal substances such as nicotine, and alcohol, and helps make them aware of the contrast between what is exhibited in commercials promoting the products, and the reality for those who use, and abuse alcohol, or nicotine over time. The program exposes young people to medical facts concerning the damage done to the bodies of heavy drinkers, and cigarette smokers, but encourages the youth to draw their own conclusion about the information. It does not preach or tell the young people what to think.

    Research encouraged

    • When using the NARCONON prevention approach, research should be encouraged, with the understanding that the learner will draw his or her own conclusions from what is learned. The approach is always open ended, never authoritative, or legalistic. Small steps towards abstinence are both accepted, and encouraged, never punished because they are not complete. The result of allowing youth to do their own research, and draw their own conclusions, has been positive, and evaluation questions administered to youth after the treatment process has terminated, have yielded overwhelmingly positive responses to the prevention treatment approach.

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