Substance Abuse Prevention Benefits of School-Based Services

Teaching substance abuse to children when they are young is key to preventing them from abusing cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. One way of doing this is to provide substance abuse education in the schools. School programs offer a variety of techniques, such as life skills training for those in middle school and Narconon that have been successful in the prevention of drug abuse.

Programs that Work

• Marijuana is known as a soft drug with few becoming addicted, but people can develop a dependency

  Substance abuse such as alcohol, smokeless tobacco and prescription drugs are still a problem with teens and young adults, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse. Marijuana use appears to be stalled at the moment, but the rates of use have not significantly changed and barbiturates such as Vicadin and Oxycontin are on the increase for 10th through 12-graders.

  Often, children in elementary and middle schools are familiar with legal and illegal substances through family and friends. Some may be tempted to try it out of curiosity .

  Prevention programs that begin in elementary and middle schools are most successful because risk factors are here many years before the first introduction to alcohol or drugs, according to the ERIC Clearinghouse on Teaching and Teacher Education website.

  In the past, many prevention programs used scare tactics, informational, values clarification and pontification, which proved not very useful in the prevention of substance abuse. Today, the more successful programs work on life skills, social influences and social skills. The target of these drug programs are not just the children at risk, but all children.

LifeSkills Training

• Botvin LifeSkills Training is a program that teaches drug resistance skills that help children to become aware of the common misconceptions about cigarettes, alcohol and drug use. Through practice, children learn practical alcohol, tobacco and other drug use information and learn how to resist peer pressure, according to the Life Skills Training website.

  Through this program, children learn how self-image issues have an impact on behavior, learn how to set goals and identify how the consequences of their decision to indulge in substances affect them and their families.

Narconon Drug Program

• The Narconon, a drug program designed for high school students provides information on drugs in lectures and in-group discussions concentrating at first on the short-term effects of drugs on family, friends and the user, according to the Narconon website.

  The Narconon program help teens become aware of the effects of drugs and how outside influences such as peer pressure and media influence drug use in teens. Teens may see their parents and other adults drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and use drugs and perceive a certain amount of approval. By participating in demonstrations, role-playing and group discussions, high school students learn to deal with the subtle influences of substances among their peers and learn how to express themselves in a positive manner.

  The most successful substance abuse schools programs today are those that concentrate on how the children perceive themselves in relations to others, the program provides them with the tools and skills to deal with peer-pressure and learning to deal with self-image issues to become successful in their school years to a functioning and active adult.