Drug Abuse Prevention — Should We Even Bother?

In the past 13 years I have been working in the drug abuse prevention field as well as the drug rehabilitation field. I know one thing for sure: drug rehabilitation alone, will NEVER handle the drug problem in our society. Drug users are being created daily. Per the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, right now, there are more than 20 million persons in the U.S.A. who abuse or are addicted to drugs. There aren’t 20 million beds for all those people who need help. Some will end up in jail, some will die and some will sober up, but always new users will come up and join the ranks of those addicted to drugs. Prevention is absolutely necessary and if done right, can produce dramatic results in a very short amount of time.

In our program we have learned what it takes to effectively deliver drug abuse prevention presentations. Just to illustrate the effectiveness of true prevention, here are some comments that came in just in the past few days from students that attended our presentations.

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT DRUGS DID CHANGE. I WOULD NOT WANT TO BE A 55 YEAR OLD WOMAN SITTING AT MY HOUSE WITH NO BRAIN. I WANT TO BE SUCCESSFUL, AND I KNOW FROM THIS TALK TODAY, I CAN BE SUCCESSFUL WITHOUT DRUGS. 11th grade student.

I THOUGHT THAT IT WOULD BE SAFE TO TRY SOMETHING ONCE, AND THAT THERE WOULDN’T BE A PROBLEM IF I WAS CAREFUL. BUT NO, I LEARNED THAT IT DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT. THANK YOU (C:

“I’VE SEEN FRIENDS I LOVE BECOME DIFFERENT JUST AFTER ONE YEAR ON DRUGS. IT HURTS TO WATCH, SO MAYBE NOW I CAN HELP THEM INSTEAD OF JUST STANDING ON THE SIDE LINE AND WATCHING THEM FADE.”

“I WAS THINKING ABOUT DOING SOMETHING [DRUG] SOMETIME THIS WEEK BUT AFTER LISTENING TO WHAT HAPPENS I DON’T WANT TO ANYMORE.” 9th Grader.

It is not true that all kids will try drugs. It is not true that kids inherit addiction from their family. It IS true that kids have very little information from reliable sources regarding drugs. They find out what drugs do from friends and drug dealers but they don’t know why drugs do that, or what happens to their body and mind when they ingest a toxic chemical. These are important bits of information that if taught the right way, could make the difference between deciding to do a drug or not to do a drug and subsequently the difference between life and death.

© 2010, Sigal Adini. All rights reserved.