drug abuse prevention and control essay

Drug Abuse Prevention and Control

This essay will discuss strategies for preventing and controlling drug abuse. It will cover various approaches, including education, policy changes, rehabilitation programs, and law enforcement efforts, to provide a multi-faceted view of drug abuse prevention and control. Additionally, PapersOwl presents more free essays samples linked to Crime Prevention.

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The deep, energetic and sonorous voice of Whitney Houston that graced our ears will truly be missed. She was found dead in her house as a result of cocaine overdose. She was about 48 when she died. So will young Mac Miller and Lil Peep- talented celebrities who died of accidental fentanyl overdose at a very young age. Their stories, we heard due to the status they have achieved in the society. There are millions of other young people all over the world given to illegal drugs misuse and overdose who die daily due to drugs.

Deaths caused by illegal drugs have been estimated to be about 200,000 yearly for injecting drug abusers.

Some of the dangers associated with illegal drug use include overdose, addictions, criminal behavior alongside a myriad of side effects. Illegal drug users or drug abusers pose a threat to themselves and to the environment at large. Seeing the big dangers associated with illegal drug use and the increase in number of illegal drug users, several measures have been taken by different countries to curb this menace. The United states government adopted the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs law which provided different measures such as compulsory treatment and severe punishment for drug related offences including death penalties for some categories of Drug trafficking.

For example, Malaysian government recently declared death penalty for drug traffickers. Under the Malaysian law, if a person possesses as small as few ounces of marijuana and half an ounce of heroin, the person is declared a trafficker. Other countries such as Vietnam, Saudi Arabia etc. have zero tolerance for illegal drug users. Also, several establishments and non-governmental organizations have launched campaign against drug abuse and illegal drug use.

However, jail terms and prison sentences have proven ineffective in the control of illegal drug use. Criminalization approaches to drug use has mostly exacerbate the problem rather than solving the problem. Recidivism, which is the tendency to relapse into the previous state, has been confirmed in most illegal drug users who serve jail terms. Studies carried out in 15 states showed that one-quarter of the prison inmates released returned to the prisons for other crime related offences including testing positive for drug use. In fact, illegal drugs are sold in prisons despite the security and controlled environment prisons offer. It seems more like the very things the offenders are being punished for are what they are being exposed to in prison cells. Some other post prison trauma such as living with the stigma of being an ex-convict, difficulty in getting a paid employment, difficulty in reuniting with their family or loved ones cause some of the illegal drug users to fall into relapse.

Drug abuse and addiction is one of the key disadvantages of illegal drug use. It has been confirmed that chronic addiction associated with drug abuse is actually an illness that requires help, treatment and care. The emphasis should be placed on drug counseling/psychotherapy and education of individual drug users. The combinations of these two approaches have proven to be more effective than criminalizing illegal drug users. It should be noted that drug abuse as a result of illegal drug use is a health concern and if it is addressed as a health concern, people should not be jailed because of their sicknesses. Furthermore, keeping drug users in prison is quite expensive for the government.

The longer the sentences, the greater the bill. It was discovered that in 2008, the United States government spent 47 billion naira on corrections. These monies could be diverted into building a structure for psychotherapy/drug counseling and drug information centers. Drug users come out better and benefit more from programs like this. In addition, integrating drug education into school curriculum would go a long way in prevention or reducing the incidence of illegal drug use. Early child education and awareness is important

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108 Drug Abuse Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best drug abuse topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on drug abuse, 💡 most interesting drug abuse topics to write about, ❓ drug abuse research questions.

Drug abuse essays are an excellent way to learn about the issue and its influence on various groups and populations while demonstrating your understanding.

Various substances, including alcohol, narcotics, and other mind-altering products, are a popular method for recreation in some communities.

However, they are prone to result in addiction, psychological as well as mental, and lead the person to pursue another dose before anything else.

In doing so, he or she can eventually ruin his or her life, which is why most drugs are currently banned around the world. This article will offer you some tips that will help you write an excellent essay and receive the top grade.

Youth is a major demographic that is affected by addiction issues due to drug consumption. Young people are impressionable and prone to search for new sensations. Drugs can offer a sense of novelty and provide an experience they have not had before, leading to considerable appeal.

Considering that young people are generally not wealthy and have to focus on work to succeed in life, essays on drug among youth can use a variety of excellent topics. You can offer your ideas on the reason for the phenomenon’s existence and ways in which it can be prevented.

However, remember that the purpose of the programs should be to help the people who are at risk.

There are many other drug abuse essay topics that you can explore, with poverty being a prominent example. Despite their conditions, many people turn to substance abuse to try and escape the unpleasant aspects of their life.

These population segments are more likely to suffer after acquiring a drug habit than young people because they generally receive less attention.

Furthermore, poor neighborhoods with relatively low amounts of surveillance by law enforcement are likely to house drug dealers who prey on vulnerable people.

You can discuss this topic or discuss a variety of other ones, as the relationship between poverty and poor outcomes has been researched deeply.

Here are some additional tips for your essay:

• Try to use examples to illustrate your points about various aspects of the issue. Drug addiction essay quotations from people who are affected by the condition or have overcome it can offer valuable insights. They also legitimize your findings by providing parallels with the real world.
• Alcohol essays are an excellent choice, as the substance is legal and available to everyone without much difficulty. Nevertheless, its effects can be devastating, especially if a person’s consumption is chronic.
• Try to write a drug abuse essay outline before starting work, as it will help you to organize the essay. Select some prominent ideas that you want to discuss and organize them in a manner that represents a logical progression. You do not have to discard all of the other concepts, as you can make them sub-headings under your main titles.
• Be sure to include a drug abuse essay introduction and conclusion in your work. They will help you provide a structure to the essay and make it easier for the reader to understand your ideas. The introduction should describe the topic and provide the thesis, and the conclusion should restate your main points.

Visit IvyPanda for drug abuse essay titles, and other useful samples on various subjects to help you with your writing work!

• Drug Trafficking and Drug Abuse Drug trafficking contributes to drug abuse in the society. Drug trafficking also contributes to increased criminal activities that affect the security of citizens.
• Drug and Alcohol Abuse For along time now, drug and alcohol abuse in the society has been a problem that affects the youth and the society at large. This paper highlights the problems of drug abuse and alcohol drinking […]
• Drug Abuse and Current Generation Drug abuse also breeds an array of behavioral problems among young people, which may affect their suitability to fit in the society.
• Drug Abuse & Its Effects on Families Focusing on the family seems to be by far, the most known and effective way of finding a solution with regards to the “war on drugs” since it more promising to end the vicious cycle […]
• Social Media Impact on Drug Abuse Thus, social media platforms definitely contribute to the misuse of various drugs by romanticizing their consumption and making “social drug use” acceptable among users.
• Consequences of Drug Abuse The endless stream of drugs, obtainable to the individuals with little or no restrictions, poses a serious inquiry. When assessing the advantages of using pharmaceutical drugs, it is essential to consider the severity of health […]
• Drug and Substance Abuse Many experts consider addiction as a disease as it affects a specific part of the brain; the limbic system commonly referred to as the pleasure center.
• Prevention Research: The Fight Against Drug Abuse It is agreeable that US’s ‘War on Drugs’ has been an effective substance abuse prevention plan despite the hiccups that the program faces and its inability to attain some of its designated mandates within the […]
• Reasons Behind Youth’s Engagement to Drug Abuse in the 21st Century Although youths in the 21st century engage in drug abuse due to several factors, it suffices to declare factors such as the rising unemployment status, peer pressure, and their hiked tendency to copy their parents’ […]
• Substance Abuse: Prevention Strategies and National Benchmarks Still, this desire to get away from problems by means of substances instead of making effort to improve an individual’s environment contributed to the evolution of the challenge of substance abuse into a real public […]
• Merton’s Argument of Deviance: The Case of Drug Abuse The most prominent example in support of Merton’s argument in relation to drug abuse is that cultural and social circumstances play a crucial role in defining people’s desire to engage in drug use.
• Drug Abuse Among the Youth Essentially, this case study will allow the evaluation of the prevailing cases of drug abuse among the youth. In this regard, the pain and peer pleasure cannot be persevered to allow an explicit cure of […]
• Drug Abuse, Aggression and Antisocial Behavior The use of abusive drugs can cause anger in people because of the effect they have on the brain. An example of how alcohol can cause aggression in a person is that it impairs an […]
• Prevention Programs: Drug Abuse Resistance Education This program focuses on handling peer pressure among youths, a crucial cause of drug abuse in the country. The program is also grounded on sound research, which offers the critical elements vital to handling the […]
• Teenage Drug Abuse in the United States The problem of teenage drug abuse inflicts a threat to the future society and health state of the overall population in the United States.
• Drug Abuse and Prevention Strategies When specialists deal with preventative factors, they pay attention to both mental and physical ways to resist the drug. The symbiosis of these procedures is exceptionally efficient in terms of the drug rehabilitation process when […]
• Drug Abuse Effects on Health and Nervous System These numerous damages severely affect the quality of the brains work and the health of the nervous system. While discussing the effects of drug addiction, it is essential to notice that it has a devastating […]
• Drug Abuse. “Nine Years Under” Book by Sheri Booker The book is thought provoking and important because it allows representing the difficult social situation and the problems of gang violence and drugs in the United States from the personal point of view.
• Drug Abuse in Adolescents and Its Causes Scientific research shows that the development factors for adolescent drug abuse are not limited to a set of three to five causes, but are usually linked to the integration of destructive environmental conditions.
• Youth Drug Abuse Among, Education, and Policies Although drug abuse encompasses improper use of drugs disregarding the prescriptions of medical practitioners, the principal challenges of drug abuse occasion from abuse of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.
• Drug Abuse and Society Regardless of the many intervention measures that can be adopted to solve this problem of drug abuse, the most effective intervention measure is to create awareness to youths to enable them change their behaviors and […]
• Drug Abuse as a Social Problem This poses as problem to the society because many of the people who are unemployed will resort to different ways of seeking money and pleasure.
• Drug Abuse and Its Psychological Effects The purpose of this paper is to explore in more depth the psychological effects of addiction on the family and inner circle of the addict.
• Policies for Pregnant Women With Drug Abuse Thus, out of all the offered policies, financial support for therapy is the best one, as it motivates prevention and treatment, which, in turn, causes the improvement of this situation.
• The Formative Evaluation: Program of Addressing Drug Abuse in Schools The proposed program sought to educate students about the challenges of drug abuse, its impacts on academic performance, and the best techniques to avoid the vice.
• Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Canada Therefore, it contributes as a central factor in the essence of the character, and it is crucial to understand the core definition and the elements that foster the ideology.
• Mitigating Drug Abuse in Pine View School The inclusion of professionals in the fields of health care, counseling, and drugs is expected to promote the delivery of desirable results.
• Drug Abuse and Its Negative Effects This paper aims to highlight what the field of psychology says about the negative effects of drugs and why people continue using despite the consequences. The main effect is that it creates a memory of […]
• Drug Abuse in Lake County, California The topic of drug abuse is essential for discussion due to the need to develop strategies to prevent and minimize the dangerous consequences of drug abuse in different regions.
• Drug Abuse Among Homeless Young Adults in New Jersey The reason why young adults in New Jersey get involved in drugs and alcohol after becoming homeless is to manage their situations in an attempt to attain the tentative pleasure of life despite their problems. […]
• Community Intervention Practices Against Drug Abuse The key features that result in successful community-based intervention on drug abuse are integrated for effectiveness and efficiency. On the other hand, drug abuse refers to the consumption of substances that elicit particular feelings and […]
• Alcoholism, Domestic Violence and Drug Abuse Kaur and Ajinkya researched to investigate the “psychological impact of adult alcoholism on spouses and children”. The work of Kaur and Ajinkya, reveals a link between chronic alcoholism and emotional problems on the spouse and […]
• Monitoring the Future: National Survey Results on Drug Use National survey results on drug use obtained by Monitoring the Future have a significant value to the development of various approaches with regard to the prevention of drug abuse.
• The Health Issues Associated With Drug Abuse It is therefore imperative to develop strategies for health promotion to reduce the number of teenagers, the most at-risk family member when it comes to drug abuse.
• Fentanyl – Drug Profile and Specific and Drug Abuse The drug has the effect of depressing the respiratory center, constricting the pupils, as well as depressing the cough reflex. The remainder 75% of fentanyl is swallowed and absorbed in G-tract.
• Cases of Drug Abuse Amongst Nursing Professionals It is noteworthy that at the top of the information, the date posted is Monday, February 14, 2011, yet against the information, the date is February 11, 2011.
• The Treatment of Drug Abuse Any medical practitioner treating a drug abuse patient has to be careful in many aspects, like: He has to be careful on the issue that if the addiction has effected the brain of the patient.
• Drug Courts and Detoxification: Approach to Drug Abuse Treatment However, since 1989, the US federal system has been providing the majority of drug abusers with proper treatment or education with the help of a drug court option.
• Drug Abuse in Adolescents Aged 15-19 Years Old: A Public Health Menace In addition, the objectives of the paper are as follows: the first aim is to analyze the collected data and produce a review of the information.
• Drug Abuse and Addiction Holimon has succeeded in reviving some of her family relations, and she is still putting a lot of effort to get ahead in this area to the fullest extent possible.
• Sports as a Solution to Youth Substance Abuse: Dr. Collingwood’s View His comments made me realize that it would be unwise by the end of the day for any parent to leave their children under the mercy of the media where they learned that doing drugs […]
• Drug Abuse in High School and College With respect to social work and the problem of substance abuse, research has been carried out in terms of investigating the relationship between drug abuse and poverty, the effects of drug abuse on the society.
• Critical Issues in Education: Drug Abuse and Alcoholism For this case, the ministry concerned has a very hard task of ensuring there are no critical issues that are left unsolved that relate to education, failure to which will affect the performance of students […]
• Biopsychosocial Experience in Drug Abuse Treatment There has to be a preventive strategy in every intervention procedure to avoid the occurrence of a disease. I find the course of treatment in this intervention beneficial for the creation of the needed preventive […]
• Addictive Behavior Programs and Drug Abuse Trends The involvement of stakeholders is an essential condition for the effectiveness of this model of work and its results, and all the roles should be allocated in accordance with the capabilities of the program’s participants.
• Substance Misuse in American Youth: A Socio-Cultural Analysis The paper analyzes studies regarding some of the most widespread types of substances, as well as discusses the role of the rap culture in the growing number of young addicts in the U.S.
• Social Behaviour as a Science: Drug Abuse in Youth Thus, the application of social psychology to the phenomenon of youth drug abuse helps to explain how social factors impact the prevalence of and risk for drug abuse.
• ACTIQ Prescription Drug Abuse The fast-acting characteristic of ACTIQ is a result of being absorbed in the mucosal lining of the mouth. ACTIQ is a synthetic drug that is available as lozenges/lollipops, which are designed to be sucked in […]
• Prescription Drug Abuse and Lebanon Students The first two authors are the representatives of the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at the American University of Beirut, and Martins is from the Department of Mental Health, the John Hopkins University.
• Financial Planning for Drug Abuse Prevention in Virginia Estates Therefore, the first preferred sources for the program are the County Commission and the Alabama Department of Corrections. The program can be financed by the Montgomery County Commission in the short term and Alabama Department […]
• Addressing the Drug Abuse in Parolees and Probationers The aim of the program is to address the drug abuse in parolees and probationers during their probations and decrease the use of drugs in them.
• Problem of Drug Abuse in Schools The research worked on the hypothesis that the treatment would reduce or result in the total cessation of drug use, and better relations with family and friends.
• Prescription Drug Abuse in the United States The combination of Ibuprofen and acetaminophen are effective for the patients, who want to reduce and control the level of pain.
• Impact of Drug Abuse on Adolescent Development Therefore, it is important for counselors to consider these stages to help them address the issue of substance abuse among adolescents. In the habitual stage, most adolescents take drugs to help them modify their moods.
• Drug Abuse: Age, Gender and Addictive Susceptibility This incorporates the aspects of gender where males and females possess varying biological constitutions that might affect the prescribed treatments in the realms of addiction. It is important to consider the rapidity and susceptibility of […]
• Drug Abuse Prevention Programs Additionally, it is possible to prospect the success of the program in case the required readiness from the community can be unveiled prior to the program execution.
• The Cultural Context and Ethics of Prevention of Drug Abuse The first prevention strategy outlined in the document is the involvement of young people in all levels of the prevention program establishment. Concurrently, it is crucial to relate this technique with the subject of culture […]
• Use of Psychotropic Medications in the Treatment of Drug Abuse This is because the mental illness is, literally, the one that sustains the abuse of drugs and thus after it is healed; the patient will have no reason to continue abusing the drugs.
• Drug Abuse: Awareness Amongst the Youths This project is going to carry out a public awareness campaign with the aim of educating the young people on the hazards related to the vice of drug and substance abuse. The awareness campaign is […]
• A New Alcohol and Drug-Abuse Rehabilitation Center in Liverpool Hospital, Sydney The hospital, in response to this distress, has decided to bring help closer to the people of Liverpool by the construction of the annex facility.
• Spirituality Effect on Drug Abuse Treatment Programs The hypothesis of the study was that spirituality is appropriate in the formal treatment of addiction; the study confirmed this hypothesis.
• Drug Abuse and Religious Spirituality Concept Particularly, this high rate of relapses was determined by Olmstead et al.as a direct result of a degree of failure on the part of drug abuse treatment programs to sufficiently address the primary reason why […]
• Drug Abuse and Harmful Health Effects The principle recognizes the importance of helping drug addicts out of the activity but also sees the importance of protecting their rights to health matters if the country is to realize economic development.
• The Extent of Drug Abuse Among People in America Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Said He Lied about Crack Cocaine Use Because He Was Embarrassed Mayor lied about the use of crack cocaine The article titled “Toronto Mayor Rob Ford said he lied about crack […]
• Drug Use and Abuse in America: Historical Analysis The new law was similar to the Boggs Act of 1951 in that it employed the same formula of using perceived increase in drug use in the country.
• Drug Abuse as an Ethical Issue On the side of duties and obligations, the societal norms stipulate that individuals should be caring to other members of the society especially the children and the old.
• “Cocaine: Abuse and Addiction” by National Institute on Drug Abuse The literature provides us with a report of a research that has been conducted in the US regarding the topic of cocaine and drug abuse.
• Prescription Painkillers, the New Drug Abuse of Choice Studies attribute the recent increase in the misuse of prescription drugs to an increase in the use of the Internet, which facilitates the growth of illegitimate online drug stores and uncontrolled online prescription drug sales.
• Music Analysis: Drug Abuse in Music So in this song the artist is also lamenting the dangers of drugs and the theme of the music is one that advocates against tackling the problem with issues of drug abuse by arguing the […]
• Drug Abuse: Comprehensive Review The effects associated with drug abuse tend to vary depending on an individual’s age and the phase of drug abuse that the person is in.
• Adolescent’s Drug Abuse and Therapy Success When one accepts to put up with negative peer pressure, they end up giving up the personal trusts and values thus the pressure becomes a form of a negative force.”Does peer pressure affect the decision […]
• What Are Influences That Cause Drug Abuse on Youth?
• What Are Some Solutions to Drug Abuse?
• What Are the Primary Causes and Effects of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Among Young People?
• What Causes Teenage Drug Abuse?
• What Does Drug Abuse Truly?
• Why Do Children Need to Be Educated About Drug Abuse?
• Why Has the American Government Not Managed to Stop Drug Abuse All These Years?
• How Does Drug Abuse Affect Personal Development of Hong Kong Teenagers?
• How Does Pericarditis Form Due to Drug Abuse?
• How Drug Abuse Ruins Families and Destroys Relationships?
• How Does Prescription Drug Abuse Affect Teens?
• Does the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program Work?
• What Is the Drug of Abuse?
• What Are the Four Types of Drugs Abused?
• Which Is an Example of Drug Abuse?
• What Is the Leading Cause of Drug Abuse?
• What Are the Causes and Effects of Drug Abuse?
• What Are the Main Consequences of Drug Abuse?
• How Does Drug Abuse Affect Our Society?
• How Can We Prevent Drug Abuse?
• Why Is It Essential to Prevent Drugs?
• What Are the Ten Most Abused Drugs?
• How Do Drugs Affect Mental Health?
• What Are the Effects of Drug Abuse on Youths?
• What Is the Connection Between Adolescents From Divorced Families and Drug Abuse?
• Are Alcohol and Drug Abuse the Most Common Issues of Today?
• What Is Athletes’ Motivation for Performance-Enhancement Drug Abuse?
• What Is the Correlation Between Parietal and Adolescent Drug Abuse?
• How Is Dealing With Teenage Drug Abuse?
• What Is the Difference Between Drug Use and Drug Abuse?
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• NIDA supports research to develop and test effective, sustainable, scalable strategies to prevent substance use or misuse, progression to substance use disorders, and other negative health effects of substance use.
• Evidence-based prevention strategies can have long-term, cost saving benefits for both personal and public health, particularly when they are implemented during childhood and adolescence. Effective prevention strategies have been designed to meet people’s needs at different stages of life—from the prenatal period through early childhood, adolescence, and adulthood—and in varied settings like family life, schools, healthcare settings, and communities.
• Studies indicate that substance use disorders and other drug-related harms are more likely to occur when a person has experienced risk factors such as a family history of substance use disorders, personal trauma, or access to drugs. Protective factors, such as healthy family and peer relationships and financial stability, may lessen a person’s risk of developing substance use disorders.

Why are some people more likely to use drugs?

People report using drugs for a wide variety of reasons. Some people use drugs to feel pleasurable, stimulating, or relaxing effects. Others who experience anxiety, stress, depression, or pain may use drugs to try to feel better. Some people use drugs to try to improve their focus in school or at work or their abilities in sports. Many people—especially young people—use drugs out of curiosity and because of social pressure. The age at which people start using drugs—and whether or not they continue—depends on many different individual and societal factors across a person’s life. Read more about risk and protective factors that impact whether people use drugs or develop substance use disorders .

Some people who use drugs go on to develop substance use disorders or experience other harms . However, evidence-based prevention strategies can help people avoid substance use, substance use disorders, and related health and safety problems.

Why are some people more likely to develop substance use disorders?

What are substance use disorders what is addiction.

Substance use disorders are chronic, treatable medical conditions from which people can recover. They are defined in part by continued substance use despite negative outcomes. Substance use disorders may be diagnosed as mild, moderate, or severe based on whether a person meets defined diagnostic criteria. Addiction is not a formal diagnosis, and the term is used in many ways. Some people use the term to describe some substance use disorders, especially more serious presentations.

While many people try drugs at some point in their lives and even continue to use them, only some people develop substance use disorders. No single factor determines whether a person will develop a substance use disorder. These chronic but treatable health conditions arise from the interplay of many different individual and societal factors across a person’s life 1 . Read more about risk and protective factors that impact whether people use drugs or develop substance use disorders .

Importantly, evidence-based prevention strategies can help people avoid substance use and substance use disorders. For those who do develop substance use disorders, safe and effective treatment can help.

Which risk and protective factors impact whether people use drugs or develop substance use disorders?

Risk factors for substance use and substance use disorders can include a person’s genes, other individual characteristics, and aspects of their social environment, and the impact of these factors can change at different stages of a person’s life. 1 Generally, the more risk factors a person has—such as early-life trauma, chronic stress, a family history of addiction, or peers who use drugs—the greater the chances that they will use substances and develop a substance use disorder. 2,3

But even in the presence of multiple risk factors, substance use and substance use disorders are not inevitable. Other factors can help protect someone from using substances and developing a substance use disorder. Protective factors include individual traits like optimism and environmental influences like healthy family and peer relationships and financial stability. 4  

It is important to note that many risk and protective factors are not a result of choices an individual person makes, but rather are a facet of their inherited genetics, family, life circumstances, and other aspects of their biology and environment. Better understanding these factors is critical to developing prevention strategies that lessen the impact of risk factors and bolster or introduce new protective factors. NIDA funds research to identify risk and protective factors and seek ways to prevent substance misuse and substance use disorders even when multiple risk factors are present. This includes the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ Study (ABCD Study®) and the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study , which  will inform our understanding of healthy development—including brain and cognitive development, and how drugs and other exposures affect it—and the HEAL Prevention Cooperative , which is supporting research to prevent opioid misuse and opioid use disorder among vulnerable adolescents and young adults. 

Examples of factors that may influence a person’s likelihood of drug use, misuse, or of developing a substance use disorder include:

Individual Factors

• Age at substance use initiation: Drug use at a young age can influence brain development and behavior in ways that increase the likelihood of going on to use other drugs and developing a substance use disorder. 5 Consequently, people who start to use substances as children and young adolescents are more likely to develop a substance use disorder than are those who first use substances in late adolescence or young adulthood. 6,7,8 For this reason, most prevention programs focus on preventing or delaying substance use in youth. Read more about prevention for young people .
• Genetics: Inherited biological factors can play a significant role in a person’s likelihood of using substances and of developing a substance use disorder. 2,10
• Other mental health problems: People with other mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, PTSD, and many other psychiatric conditions are also more likely to use substances and to develop substance use disorders. 4,11,12
• Biological sex: Factors related to biological sex—such as different brain structure and function, tissue composition, endocrine, and metabolic functions in males and females—can influence how a person responds to drugs. 13 For example, women use drugs less frequently and in smaller amounts than men, but they can experience the effects more strongly, and substance use in women tends to develop into addiction more quickly than in men. 14,15
• Personality : Individual characteristics such as risk-taking, sensation-seeking, aggression, or heightened responses to chronic stress can influence the likelihood of using substances and developing a substance use disorder. 16,17,18
• Specific types and patterns of drug use : Use of certain drugs such as opioids, nicotine, and methamphetamine is associated with a higher likelihood of developing a substance use disorder than is use of other drugs like psychedelics. 19,20 Similarly, injection drug use is more strongly associated with developing a substance use disorder, as more drug is delivered more rapidly to the brain than via other routes of administration. 21

Family Factors

• Family relationships : Research shows that growing up in a supportive, stable family environment versus one associated with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) like trauma, abuse and neglect can impact a person’s likelihood of problem drug use and of developing substance use disorders later in life. 22,23 A higher level of parental involvement and young people’s perceptions that parents are aware of their activities have also been found to be protective. 24,25
• Parental substance use and attitudes : Whether parents use drugs or alcohol and their level of permissiveness or acceptance of substance use influence whether a child or adolescent is likely to use substances.  26,26

Community Factors

• School : Studies show certain aspects of a school environment—such as how often other students use drugs and how connected students feel to their classmates—can influence whether students use or avoid substances. 4 ,27
• Peers : Whether an individual’s peers use drugs or disapprove of substance use is a major influence on whether that individual will use substances, particularly during youth. 4 ,27
• Neighborhood : Research shows that living in a neighborhood with high levels of poverty or violence is associated with a higher likelihood of using substances. 25,27,28 Positive community relationships and environments have been associated with less substance use and less progression from substance use to substance use disorders. 29

Structural Factors

• Social: Stigma and discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, or other factors can cause chronic stress that makes someone more vulnerable to substance use and to developing substance use disorders. 30
• Economic: Growing up in a household or neighborhood with lower resources can affect children’s brain development in ways that may make them more vulnerable to future substance use disorders. 31 Housing insecurity and limited access to education and employment are also associated with substance use disorders. 32
• Laws and culture : Access to substances, 27 as well as the laws, policies, culture, norms, and attitudes surrounding their use in a society, can influence whether an individual uses substances and experiences related health problems including substance use disorders. 4

How can substance use and substance use disorders be prevented?

Researchers have been working for decades to better understand the factors that influence substance use and negative outcomes associated with it. 33 Results have led to the development of evidence-based interventions designed to prevent substance use and negative outcomes related to it. Read more about evidence-based prevention programs .

What are evidence-based prevention strategies? How are they delivered, and what kinds of activities do they include?

Evidence-based prevention programs are designed to prevent substance use and related negative outcomes. Most strategies are designed to be delivered in specific settings, to specific age groups, and to specific populations. Prevention programs may aim to:

• Reduce risk factors and enhance protective factors.
• Help people avoid or delay the onset of drug use.
• Stop substance use from progressing into higher-risk substance use or a substance use disorder.
• Reduce harms related to substance use and misuse, such as injuries or infections.

Prevention programs can be categorized as universal (broad approaches for the public or for everyone in a certain setting); selected (for individuals or groups with a known risk factor for substance use disorders), or indicated (for individuals with behaviors that indicate they may be at risk for substance use disorders). 34,35

Prevention programs are also typically designed to meet people’s needs at specific stages of life—the prenatal period, early childhood, adolescence, or adulthood—and in specific settings like family households, doctor’s offices, and communities. 36

• Family-based programs help parents and other caregivers access resources and skills associated with better substance use outcomes in children. 37,38,39   These may include, for example, the Nurse-Family Partnership, an intensive parenting skills intervention that provides home nurse visits for new and expecting parents, or parenting classes to teach caregivers about early child development and how to build warm, supportive relationships with children. Find out more about parent and caregiver resources from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA), and from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, including the publication Growing Up Drug Free: A Parent's Guide to Substance Use Prevention .
• School-based programs help students develop social, emotional, cognitive, and substance-refusal skills and provide accurate information on drugs. 40,41 Such programs might provide children with social and emotional skills training , connect at-risk youth to positive mentors, or coordinate after-school activities. Examples include the Good Behavior Game and Classroom-Centered Intervention . See NIDA resources for parents and educators .
• Community-based programs engage community organizations and leaders to identify and address local-level risk factors for substance use and facilitate ways to lessen their impact. 42 This includes Communities that Care , which identifies and implements evidence-based interventions that best match a community’s needs and resources.   
• Population-specific programs help groups of people with shared circumstances or characteristics—such as housing status, ethnic and racial identity, sex and gender, or geographic location–overcome unique challenges and amplify unique strengths that may impact substance use outcomes. 43 For example, a program for young people experiencing homelessness may deliver housing, education, and health care to help counteract risk factors for new or worsening substance use.
• Prevention strategies in health-care settings help clinicians determine if patients may be at risk for substance use disorders and connect them to care and other services that can help ( Mitchell 2013 ). 44 This includes activities such as screening as part of a routine pediatric primary care visit. 45 NIDA provides  two evidence-based brief online screening tools  that providers can use to assess for substance use disorder (SUD) risk among adolescents 12-17 years old, the Screening to Brief Intervention (S2BI) and the Brief Screener for Tobacco, Alcohol, and other Drugs (BSTAD). 
• Programs can also be tailored for workplaces and justice settings . For example, NIDA-funded research has investigated ways to reduce substance use in justice-involved youth in rural communities.

Read more about how NIDA is advancing the science on effective prevention strategies.

Are prevention programs a good return on investment?

Studies have shown that evidence-based prevention strategies have long-term, cost saving benefits for both personal and public health, with positive effects that last for generations. NIDA-supported research continues to evaluate the economic impact of prevention programs, how to optimize cost efficiency and effectiveness, and how to translate science into sound policy. In addition to promoting better health outcomes, well-managed prevention programs have been shown to be cost-effective and make good financial sense for several reasons :

• Substance use can lead to economic losses . Drug overdose, substance use disorders, and other complications of substance use often lead to profound losses for individuals, families, and communities. While some losses may be difficult to quantify, research shows substance use can lead to economic losses as well. Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that opioid use disorder and opioid overdose alone cost the United States $1.02 trillion in 2017. 46  
• Greater investment in prevention could offset some of these costs . A study of one state health system found that more than 10 percent of the hospital costs incurred in 2019 (more than $327 million) were associated with adolescent high-risk behaviors, including substance use, that could be prevented through screening and referral to family-based prevention programs. 47  
• Impacts can be long lasting . A 2021 analysis of the Communities That Care prevention system, which helps communities utilize their resources most effectively to address identified risk factors, showed that an approximately $602 investment in each child (adjusted to 2017 dollars) yielded an estimated $7,754 in savings by the time participants were 23. 48 Further, research has shown that prevention interventions in early childhood, such as the Raising Healthy Children program, can have positive impacts on behavior and health outcomes for generations. 49  
• Prevention programs may benefit multiple health outcomes . Substance use disorders frequently co-occur with other mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The benefits of prevention for substance use disorders, particularly in early childhood, can extend to preventing other mental illnesses later in life. 43

How can harms related to substance use be prevented?

Many prevention strategies aim to prevent not only substance use and substance use disorders but other harms associated with drug use, such as drug overdoses, infectious diseases, or injuries. Some strategies aim to do so by preventing drug use directly. By contrast, harm reduction approaches seek to reduce certain health and safety issues associated with drug use 50 and to improve health and wellbeing during active drug use. Find more information on harm reduction .

How is NIDA advancing the science on substance use prevention?

NIDA funds research to understand risk and protective factors, to reduce risk factors and bolster protective factors, and to translate this understanding into evidence-based strategies and determine how best to implement and scale these strategies.

Developing and testing new, safe, effective, and sustainable strategies to prevent substance use or misuse and their progression to substance use disorders or other negative health effects is a key research priority for NIDA.

NIDA-supported prevention research adapts to address evolving situations like the current drug overdose crisis; equitable access to health care; and social and structural influences on health. NIDA research also aims to promote and to capitalize on advances in basic and behavioral sciences, data science, and technology.

NIDA also supports research to examine the social and economic impact of certain laws and policies in preventing substance use and its negative health effects. Together, this research helps policymakers and public health professionals make informed decisions to promote better health outcomes around substance use.

NIDA conducts and funds research with particular attention to:

• Identifying and targeting biological factors—like neural pathways in the brain—involved in the development of substance use and substance use disorders.
• Identifying risk and protective factors for substance use and misuse, substance use disorders, and related health and safety problems like overdose. This includes learning more about child and adolescent development through studies like the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ Study (ABCD Study®) and the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study to better understand the factors that influence substance use and related health problems.
• Enhancing people’s resilience and buffering against stressors to help prevent substance use and promote healthy behaviors across the lifespan.
• Developing strategies to prevent substance use and the progression of substance use to harmful use, to the use of multiple substances, and to a substance use disorder and other adverse health effects.
• Understanding why and how effective prevention approaches work and improving their uptake and reach. These includes integrating them into medical care, social services programs, communities, schools, and families.
• Developing tailored prevention strategies to help underserved or low-resource populations with risk factors for substance use and related health problems.
• Supporting research to evaluate effective harm reduction approaches, such as preventing and reversing drug overdoses as well as mitigating the spread of HIV and hepatitis .
• Addressing stigma towards people who use drugs. People who use drugs may face mistreatment, stereotyping, and negative bias from society, including in healthcare settings. These challenges may lead them to avoid seeking medical help, leading to a worsening of substance use disorders and raising the risk of related harms and overdoses. 16, 51,52
• Including local partners, end users, and potential funders in the research process, including the development and testing of potential strategies, and ways to communicate findings.

How can I help someone at risk for substance use or related health problems?

If you or someone you know may be at risk for substance use or health problems related to substance use, the following resources may help:

• If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. 988 connects you with a trained crisis counselor who can help.
• For referrals to substance use and mental health treatment programs, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or visit www.FindTreatment.gov .
• For more information about substance use disorder in children and adolescents, you may be interested in Growing Up Drug Free: A Parent's Guide to Substance Use Prevention , a publication from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Education.
• You can find more parent and caregiver resources on substance use prevention from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA).

NIDA is a biomedical research organization and does not provide personalized medical advice, treatment, counselling, or referral services. Learn more.

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Find more resources on prevention.

• Access the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration publication, Growing Up Drug Free: A Parent's Guide to Substance Use Prevention .
• Find more parent and caregiver resources from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA).
• Search for more SAMSHA publications on substance use prevention.
• Learn more about primary prevention efforts in the Overdose Prevention Strategy from the Department of Health and Human Services.
• Read more from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on preventing youth substance use and creating Drug-Free Communities .
• See the latest news from the NIDA-supported National Drug Early Warning System , which seeks to detect new and emerging substance use patterns to prevent related threats to public health.
• Browse NIDA substance use prevention resources for Parents and Educators and learn more about NIDA’s National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week® .
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Essay on Drug Abuse And Its Prevention

Students are often asked to write an essay on Drug Abuse And Its Prevention in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Drug Abuse And Its Prevention

Understanding drug abuse.

Drug abuse means using drugs in a harmful way. People, especially young ones, may use illegal drugs or misuse prescribed medicine. This can hurt their health, friendships, and future. It is a serious problem that affects many lives.

Reasons People Abuse Drugs

Effects of drug abuse.

Abusing drugs can damage the brain, heart, and other important organs. It can make a person act differently and lead to bad decisions. Sometimes, it can even cause death. Drug abuse also causes problems in families and communities.

Preventing Drug Abuse

Prevention is about education and support. Schools and families can teach about the dangers of drugs. Communities can provide activities to keep young people busy. If someone is struggling, counseling and treatment can help them stop using drugs.

250 Words Essay on Drug Abuse And Its Prevention

Why people abuse drugs.

People might start abusing drugs for many reasons. They might feel a lot of pressure, want to fit in with friends, or try to escape problems. Sometimes, they’re curious or just want to feel good. But using drugs can make things worse and cause more problems, like bad health, trouble with the law, and losing friends and family.

Stopping drug abuse starts with education. Schools and families should teach kids about the dangers of drugs. It’s also important to have activities that keep kids busy and happy without drugs, like sports or clubs. Parents and teachers should also pay attention to children’s behavior and help them with any problems they might have.

Getting Help

If someone is already using drugs, it’s important to get help quickly. There are many places that offer support, like counseling, support groups, and treatment programs. Friends and family can help by being understanding and encouraging the person to get help.

Drug abuse is a big problem, but it can be prevented and treated. By teaching kids about the risks, paying attention to their lives, and offering help to those who need it, we can fight against drug abuse and keep our communities safe and healthy.

500 Words Essay on Drug Abuse And Its Prevention

Drug abuse is when someone uses drugs in a way that harms their body or mind. It’s not just about illegal drugs like marijuana or cocaine. Sometimes, people misuse prescription drugs too, which are medicines a doctor gives for health problems. When someone takes more than they are supposed to or uses someone else’s medicine, that’s also drug abuse.

Using drugs can hurt your health and change the way you act. It can make it hard to think clearly, make good choices, or even remember things. It can also damage your heart, liver, and other parts of your body. If you keep using drugs, it can lead to addiction and even death. It’s not just your body that gets hurt – drug abuse can ruin relationships with family and friends and make it hard to do well in school.

To stop drug abuse before it starts, it’s important to know the risks and make smart choices. Education is key. Schools and families should teach kids about the dangers of drugs. They should also provide love and support so kids don’t feel like they need drugs to be happy or accepted.

Role of Family and Friends

Drug abuse is a serious problem that can harm your health, relationships, and future. But it can be prevented. By understanding why people abuse drugs and the effects it can have, we can make better choices. With education, support from family and friends, and help from professionals when needed, we can fight against drug abuse and lead healthier, happier lives. Remember, it’s always okay to ask for help if you need it.

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

National Research Council (US) Committee on Substance Abuse Prevention Research; Gerstein DR, Green LW, editors. Preventing Drug Abuse: What do we know? Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1993.

Preventing Drug Abuse: What do we know?

• Hardcopy Version at National Academies Press

2 Concepts of Prevention

To prevent drug abuse, the central question is: What individual and group factors need to be considered in designing interventions to be effective? To answer that question, a series of related questions have been investigated: What elements affect the probability of onset, progression, severity, and cessation of drug use, abuse, and dependence? By what mechanisms do these factors work, in what combinations, and with what degrees of strength or determinacy? What interventions can be used to subject these probabilistic factors to preventive change?

• Introduction

The research in this field has had to cope with great complexity, involving multiple causal and conditioning pathways and factors that are influential in some populations or environments but that appear far less salient in others. In trying to untangle this complexity, research has followed a number of paths, some of which were ultimately abandoned as unfruitful. Over time, the field has increasingly become oriented to a few systematic approaches that have survived tests of theoretical coherence and empirical plausibility. Although these approaches are not antagonistic or contradictory, they differ dramatically in emphasis. A more encompassing synthesis or integration of approaches is not realistically in view. Nevertheless, an overarching, three-part conceptual framework is helpful in understanding the current approaches, and it provides a good basis for considering their differences and commonalities. We refer to three general concepts as predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing elements.

Predisposing elements, the first part of the framework, are comprised of internalized individual characteristics (also called diatheses) and environmental exposures (conditions). Predisposing elements are in effect prior to the first encounter or opportunity to try illicit drugs. Predispositional logic holds that some subsets of individuals, by virtue of factors that they have acquired or been exposed to, are more vulnerable or more resistant to drug use, abuse, or dependence than individuals without such factors, or with less of them, all other things being equal. Potential predisposing elements may be genetically transmitted vulnerability in the form of certain temperamental or physiological characteristics; developmental deficits, such as failures in early socialization or a lack of self-esteem, which imply that interaction within the family is an important locus of concern; knowledge and beliefs concerning the hazards of drugs; the individual's own perceptions of a drug's ability to harm; moral beliefs and attitudes about drug consumption; or the individual's social circumstances and prospects irrespective of family interaction.

Second are enabling elements. These are decision-making and economic or other circumstances relating directly to individual behavior in the situation of opportunity to consume a drug. The major enablers are of two kinds: (1) the availability and accessibility of drugs and prevention or treatment resources in the community and (2) the individual's skills to define and respond autonomously and effectively to problem situations such as the ones that drug availability presents.

Knowledge or belief structures, self-perceptions, and skills may be transmitted interpersonally or through mass media. The distribution of both predisposing and enabling elements tends to be associated with socioeconomic class and ethnicity. The relationship of predisposing and enabling elements may be critical to understanding why the rates of onset of drug use may be similar in different groups but then diverge into sharply different rates of drug abuse and dependence.

Third are reinforcing elements, which are the environmental (especially social and economic) contingencies that attach to drug-related behavior. Reinforcement may result from social recognition by a significant other or members of an important reference group, in the form of giving or withholding approval (praise, prestige, esteem), disapproval (complaint, ridicule, or dislike), or intimacy; or earning money or acquiring property as a result of drug-related income. Major significant others and groups include parents (whose influence declines over time), peers (whose influence increases from childhood to adolescence); teachers; and job supervisors and coworkers (including military peers and superiors). Parents may retain greater influence than peers in some families. Like enabling elements, social reinforcers are distributed differently in different socioeconomic classes, ethnic groups, and residential zones (Green and Kreuter, 1991; Gottlieb and Green, 1987; Heckler, 1985; Jacob, 1987; Thomas, 1990).

There are four major conceptual approaches to prevention: risk-factor, developmental, social influence, and community-specific. We briefly define each of these approaches in the next few pages. We then proceed in the balance of the chapter to present a more thorough review of the respective literatures of the first three approaches. Since the community-specific approach is still largely outside the drug prevention research literature, we defer discussion of this approach to the appendix.

The Risk Factor Approach

Three major schools of thinking and associated research about prevention emphasize one or more of these concepts of predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing elements. The first school speaks principally in terms of risk factors , a concept that is used extensively in the epidemiology of cardiovascular, cancer, and other chronic diseases (Bry et al., 1982; Newcomb et al., 1987). This is the most comprehensive approach in terms of the range and number of factors considered; it is also the least theoretically structured and the least empirically focused.

A risk factor is any observable (measurable) characteristic of the individual (including duration of exposure to specified environmental conditions) that has been shown to correlate significantly (in population or casecontrol studies) with a criterion behavior or outcome—in this case, with the onset of illicit drug use, some threshold level of consumption, or the clinical occurrence of drug abuse or dependence. This specification makes the risk factor model more empirical than theoretical. The risk factor must precede or at least occur simultaneously with the drug behavior; that is, a risk factor must be a potential cause or precursor, not a direct or indirect effect or symptom, of the criterion behavior. Reciprocal causation between risk factors and criterion behaviors is not precluded; in fact, as discussed below, a mutually reinforcing feedback among problem behaviors is the common pattern. For example, the desire for peer approval may predispose a teenager to try marijuana with her friends, the reduced inhibition and the relaxation felt during use reinforces the behavior and predisposes her to another opportunity to use. Most of the risk factors studied, in terms of the conceptual framework just reviewed, count as predisposing elements.

Interventions to prevent drug use following the risk factor approach tend to emphasize educational approaches to modify self-esteem, specific beliefs and attitudes concerning drug use, and related predisposing factors (Bry et al., 1982; Newcomb et al., 1987). Risk factors are statistical or probabilistic: if an individual ''has" the factor, his or her odds (that is, statistical risk) of having the outcome are higher than if the individual does not have the factor, all other things being equal. For example, if John thinks marijuana is harmless, then the odds that he will try it are higher than if he thinks marijuana can hurt him. Risk factors are usually additive: that is, risks add up; the more of them that apply, the more probable it is that the criterion outcome "at risk" will be observed. Some risk factors are easier to change than others, and some risk factors may weigh more heavily (higher zero-order or partial correlations with the criterion) than others. Those that meet both of these criteria become more strategic targets for intervention.

Some risks may interact or have "synergistic" effects, in which one factor statistically multiplies rather than simply adds to the effect of other factors; in other words, a may be a nonsignificant risk factor, b may be a nonsignificant risk factor, but a and b together may be a formidably significant risk factor. Thus, although a may be a significant risk factor, in the absence of b , its effect on drug use is minimal. An open question is whether risk factors are generic (i.e., to many drugs) or specific (to each drug family).

• The Developmental Approach

The second school of thought about prevention is based on developmental theory . This approach particularly emphasizes the character and dynamics of interaction over time within the family during early childhood and within environments such as the school, especially grades 1-6. It shares with some risk factor theories a concern with early developmental deficits or predisposing factors. It differs, however, from risk factor theories in its heavy concentration on characteristics of the family and school environment that directly reinforce undesirable patterns of affect, belief, or (most important) behavior. Conversely, it also concentrates on environmental reinforcement of the development of positive motivation, educational potential, and prosocial behavior. The developmental approach articulates a more elaborately linked and structured set of factors than risk factor approach. It has a more diffuse target, however; instead of trying to identify and focus on individuals who are "high risk" as the object of preemptive intervention, the developmental approach tends to bracket more inclusive populations and more dimensions of lifestyle or behavior (more than drug use, that is) as the loci of long-term environmental and institutional change.

Social Influence Approaches

The third major school of thought about prevention—really a family of related approaches—involves research on social influence . It is the most tightly focused theoretically, and it is population-based. Increasing attention is being given in social influence research to variations among demographic and other groups. It recognizes the important role of peers in the initiation and progression of drug use.

The social influence model is based on four core components: (1) providing information on the negative social and short-term physiological consequences of smoking; (2) providing information on the social influences to smoke—namely, peer, parents, and mass media; (3) correcting inflated perceptions of smoking prevalence; and (4) training, modeling, rehearsal, and reinforcement of methods to resist the social influences to smoke.

Interventions largely concentrate on 6th through 10th grade students and are best known for aiming to prevent the onset of use by modifying enabling factors; in particular, increasing the knowledge of harmful effects and teaching specific resistance skills for resisting persuasive messages from peers and mass media. Cigarette smoking is the most thoroughly documented health-related behavior in social influence theory, and most interventions to increase resistance skills were originally developed and tested in the context of preventing the onset of smoking (Evans and Raines, 1982). We have documented the relevance of smoking prevention to illicit drug use prevention in Chapter 1 , in the discussion of gateway drugs and the sequence of progression of drug involvement.

An important variation on social influence approaches is the cognitive-behavioral model, which is based on the assumption that substance use results from the combined influences of social and psychological factors. Based on work by Schinke and colleagues on pregnancy prevention (Schinke and Gilchrest, 1977; Schinke, 1982), this approach has been adapted to smoking and other substances. The theoretical basis of the model is derived from both developmental and social learning theory. Alcohol and drug use is viewed as instrumental in meeting the developmental needs of youth (e.g., transition marker, reducing stress, peer group acceptance, establishing independence). The strategy for drug prevention emphasizes the development of enabling skills, the acquisition of decision-making and problem-solving skills to equip youth to make informed decisions about alcohol and drug use. The focus is on the development of cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal skills. The approach is based on five core elements, which:

• deal with a wide range of problem situations through the use of a systematic problem-solving strategy,
• provide accurate information,
• teach coping strategies to relive stress and anxiety,
• develop assertiveness skills, and
• develop self-instructional techniques for behavioral self-control.

A final important stream of work is the life skills approach, which emphasizes the development of general life and coping skills, in addition to skills and knowledge related more directly to resisting peer influences to use substances (Botvin et al., 1980; Botvin and Eng, 1980). The program focuses on teaching cognitive-behavioral skills that remedy psychological or behavioral deficits. The Life Skills Model program consists of three major components. A substance-specific component incorporates most of the information from the social influences approach. A second component addresses developing personal skills such as coping strategies, critical thinking, and decision-making skills and teaches the basic principles of behavior change. A third component develops social skills designed to improve interpersonal functioning.

The Community-Specific Approach

A fourth perspective attempts to encompass all of the prior three. We refer to this as the community-specific prevention approach. Community-specific prevention is receiving major attention in various fields of public health, particularly in preventing cigarette smoking and in controlling risk factors for cardiovascular disease, cancer, AIDS, teenage pregnancy, and other major health or related social problems.

The conceptual foundations of drug abuse prevention historically have been imported from behavioral and social science research on cigarette smoking reduction and public health promotion generally. Large differences in the scale and nature of severe drug problems experienced in different communities makes the community-specific approach seem especially applicable to drug abuse prevention, insofar as it is oriented to investigating population differences and community variations, and to mobilizing resources accordingly. The community-specific approach is, nevertheless, a barely cultivated areas of drug abuse prevention research, within which the published work is not commensurate in scope with the risk-factor, developmental, and social-influence literatures. Therefore, we take this subject up in the appendix, which looks more generally to community-based health education to illuminate this important dimension.

• Studies Of Risk And Vulnerability

Much research attention has been focused on risk factors —variables that exist before or during the typical age of onset of drug use (the second decade of life) and predict an elevated probability of developing abuse or dependence—and on their mirror image, protective factors —those that seem to confer a degree of immunity against drug involvement. By and large, risk and protective factors are opposed ends of a set of continua, for example, impulsivity versus planning, strong versus weak family bonding (Jessor et al., 1992). Risk and protective factors thus refer to relative degrees of vulnerability on a set of continua.

Risk and protective factors may be characteristics of the individual or of the environment. Individuals vary greatly in physical and behavioral responses to nearly all health-related exposures or opportunities; they also vary in the environments to which they are exposed. The study of such variations and how they affect the probability of health problems has been immensely important in the history of medicine and public health, so it is no surprise that this approach has been adopted in the drug area (Rennert et al., 1986).

A salient finding about patterns of drug consumption, discussed in the previous chapter, is the fact that a much larger number of individuals use drugs—some very briefly, some intermittently over a longer span of years, some regularly but at a modest level that does not increase over time—than the number who progress to the clinical status of abuse or dependence. The infrequent and/or low-dose use of drugs is not a matter of indifference, because such use is illegal and can have serious consequences. Any level of use generates a degree of risk of progression to abuse or dependence as a result of internal reinforcement, and use by some is likely to model or reinforce abuse and dependence by others. But by definition, the consequences of use are much less hazardous for the individual, on average, than the consequences of abuse and dependence. Although users outnumber drug dependent and abusing individuals, the smaller number of the latter incur the majority of the social costs of drug problems. It is therefore important to give particular attention to the degree to which particular causes increase the probability of abuse or dependence over and above the incidence of drug use per se.

There are indications that the processes leading to use may be differentiated from those leading to abuse and dependence. In particular, unusually early onset of drug use (that is, well before the average age of onset in the population) is a strong correlate of later abuse or dependence, although this is not an infallible marker (Kandel et al., 1986). The early onset of cigarette smoking is of special interest, and early alcohol and marijuana onset are also of concern, because these tend to be gateways to other drugs.

Most studies of drug-related risk factors have been exploratory rather than substantive, that is, they have employed small samples, followed up for abbreviated periods, and have inadequate disaggregation and control for gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. There are, however, a few studies large enough to establish with a certain degree of confidence the relative importance of key factors, including longitudinal studies conducted by a number of research teams, including: Judith Brook and colleagues (Brook et al., 1990); Brunswick (1988); Elliott and colleagues (Elliott et al., 1989); Jessor and colleagues (Jessor and Jessor, 1977); Kandel and colleagues (Kandel et al., 1986); Kaplan and colleagues (Kaplan, 1985; Kaplan et al., 1988); Kellam and colleagues (Kellam et al., 1983); Newcomb and Bentler (1988, 1989); Pandina and colleagues (Pandina et al., 1984; Labouvie et al., in press); Pentz and colleagues (Pentz et al., 1986); and others. The following discussions draw heavily on these studies. We first review some of the literature that has focused on single risk factors; the yield of this literature is rather low, so we have been highly selective in attempting to represent it, pointing out major conclusions of studies on the role of genetic and congenital factors, personality characteristics, and socioeconomic neighborhood characteristics. We then review the results of studies on multiple risk factors that focus attention on the issue of how these risk factors interrelate.

Genetic and Congenital Predispositions

Since psychoactive drugs are chemical agents that work inside the body, it is natural to think that biological factors, including biologically heritable factors, play some part in promoting or inhibiting the onset of drug use, abuse, and dependence. The evidence for this hypothesis, however, was indirect and slender at the time of the committee's review for all drugs except alcohol. For alcohol, the heritability of some tendency—heavily modulated by environmental and developmental features—appears reasonably well established.

The evidence for biological risk factors is of two kinds. First, different strains of animal species bred for laboratory studies vary in their predilection or resistance to consuming alcohol and other drugs, and these preferences can be altered over generations through selective breeding. (These preferences can also be altered through training; trained behaviors are not, of course, genetically transmissible, although quickness in learning is.)

Second, there is evidence from behavioral-genetic and related studies with human populations. Most of this work pertains to alcoholism, although there is evidence from other pharmacogenetic and genetic epidemiological research indicating predispositions to other types of drug abuse and dependence (Institute of Medicine, 1989; Pickens and Svikis, 1988; Pickens et al., 1991). Family and twin studies suggest that there is a genetic predisposition toward one of two typical patterns of alcoholism. Children with a biological parent who has developed clinical alcoholism, even if this parent had no role whatsoever in their childrearing (e.g., children adopted at birth), are at four- to tenfold greater risk of this outcome compared with matched children whose biological parents are without a clinical history of alcoholism (Cloninger et al., 1981; Goodwin, 1983).

One index of risk that has not been well studied is the magnitude of dissonance among biological, cognitive, and behavioral spheres of functioning during the early second decade. It has been observed that girls who enter puberty early may not yet be equipped with a number of social and cognitive skills commensurate with biological maturation. They may therefore be at increased risk for a number of adverse outcomes, perhaps for as long as a decade afterward, including drug and alcohol abuse, antisocial disorder, school dropout and unplanned pregnancy (Magnussen et al., 1986). The age at menarche, as one biological marker of a host of anatomical, hormonal, and social changes, has been dropping steadily over the past 40 years, and social institutions have adjusted unevenly to these maturational developments.

Overall, the place of biological heritage and biological mediation in explaining the onset of drug use, abuse, and dependence remains uncertain. Further human population research that attends as carefully to environmental conditioning as to physiological measures is needed to evaluate the relative role of neurochemical and other biological predisposing factors. Although it is premature to recommend trials of strategies for informing people of their possible risk based on family history of drug use, further analysis of the potential risks and benefits of such advice (e.g., the risks of labeling people and reduced self-esteem versus the benefits of reduced use of drugs) is justified in anticipation of improved biological markers of risk (Bamberg et al., 1990; Becker and Janz, 1987; Bensley, 1981; Childs, 1974; Hunt et al., 1986; Khowry et al., 1985; Zylke, 1987).

Personality Characteristics

Only a small number of the many personality characteristics that have been investigated in connection with drug use have shown significant results as risk factors (Lang, 1983). Among these few characteristics, the most positive evidence has accumulated in support of a psychological construct called sensation seeking . In contrast, such factors as depression, suicidal thoughts, and low self-esteem, all of which seem very plausible and often serve as commonsense assumptions underlying the design of drug abuse prevention efforts, do not stand up well under empirical investigation.

Zuckerman (1979) described sensation seeking as a fundamental aspect of personality based in the neurochemistry of monamine oxidase. His four measures of sensation seeking—seeking new experiences, seeking thrills or adventure, susceptibility to boredom, and disinhibition—have been shown to correlate with a number of illicit activities, including alcohol and drug use, in adolescent and young adult populations (Bates et al., 1985; Huba et al., 1981). In studies using the Rutgers longitudinal sample, sensation seeking and negative affectivity proved to have much larger effects on drug use, both independently and interactively, than positive affectivity. Newcomb and McGee (1989), using multivariate methods to probe results with the UCLA sample, found that sensation seeking had unexpectedly complex effects, differing for males and females, with the most pronounced relation to high levels of alcohol use.

Many clinicians believe that specific emotional disorders, particularly depression and related distress, trigger or severely aggravate drug use, abuse, or dependence. The evidence in this direction is inconsistent. Kaplan (1985), Huba et al., (1986), Aneshensel and Huba (1983), and Labouvie (1986) all found that drug use is often preceded by emotional distress or depression. But the relieving effects of drug use on these states is short-lived. Newcomb and Bentler (1988) found that alcohol use over time in a general population sample of adolescents was correlated with a reduction in depression, but no such correlation emerged linking other drug use to depression or other emotional distress. Elliott and Huizinga (1984) found that emotional problems and social isolation (feelings of loneliness) were moderately correlated with the level of use of alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs in a general youth population sample. Dembo and colleagues (1991) found a similar result among detainees in a juvenile detention center.

The most extreme level of depression is suicidal thinking and attempts. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents. However, drug use seems to be more a risk factor for suicide attempts than the other way around. Newcomb and Bentler (1988) reported that adolescent use of "hard" drugs (beyond alcohol and marijuana) was associated with subsequently increased suicidal thinking in young adulthood.

The belief is widely held and intuitively appealing that a strong sense of self-esteem is a protective factor and lack of it a risk factor for adolescent drug use. There is no doubt that most cases of adolescent drug abuse or dependence that come to clinical attention are individuals who are short on self-esteem. The specific notion is that individuals with low self-esteem seek drugs in order to raise it (Kaplan, 1986). Numerous preventive interventions have applied this theory by seeking to build up their participants' self-esteem, teaching them how to raise it, or expanding the opportunities for enhancing self-esteem in ways other than by taking drugs.

Despite its attractions, the evidence for the self-esteem theory is mostly not supportive. In large studies such as White et al. (1986) and Kaplan et al. (1984), very weak correlations were observed between self-esteem and drug use, and these variables paled into insignificance under further statistical manipulation. Even if self-esteem did seem to be an important risk factor for drug taking, the idea that it might be altered by any of the program measures ordinarily undertaken is problematic, denying or ignoring as it does commonly assumed determinants of self-esteem such as physical attractiveness (Simcha-Fagen et al., 1986).

In summary, the search for specific personality risk factors for illicit drug taking has been mostly disappointing. Studies on sensation seeking, an active trait, have proven more promising than those focusing on more inward-turning characteristics such as depression and self-devaluation.

Socioeconomic Factors at the Neighborhood Level

The epidemiologic evidence indicates that onset of illicit drug use occurs mainly through peer group contact and that rates of onset (as distinct from continued use) are at rather similar levels within economic and ethnic groups. We suspect that the illicit drug use and trafficking that occur in economically disadvantaged communities, which are disproportionately black, Puerto Rican, and Mexican-American, occur for many of the same reasons as in other segments of the population, but that these reasons are more intense. In the most depressed portions of these communities, there is an additional dimension associated with greater numbers of drug abusing and dependent individuals and high levels of violence: namely, for many poor, young minority men and women, illicit drug markets are key sources of employment and are perceived as a route to economic mobility. In order to be successful in selling drugs, it is necessary for these young people to encourage drug use aggressively among the most vulnerable members of the community and to be prepared to enforce and protect their transactions in an increasingly gun-ridden and anarchic environment.

As Brunswick (1988) notes in her longitudinal study of several hundred youths from central Harlem: "An often overlooked cornerstone of hard drug use among young black males is that it is not only and perhaps not primarily a consumption and/or recreational behavior. It also serves economic functions of occupation and career for this group" (see also Johnson et al., 1985; Preble and Casey, 1966; Williams and Kornblum, 1986). In a population subgroup in which employment opportunities are severely constrained, and at a life stage at which economic independence is expected and required, the drug economy is one of the relatively few high-wage options that seem wide open (Reuter et al., 1990).

It is not known with certainty what distinguishes those who sell drugs in economically disadvantaged communities from the majority of their peers in these areas who, with similarly limited opportunities, shun drug involvement, or from those in the middle who use but do not sell drugs. The perception and fact of being socially distant from mainstream opportunities, at the same time needing money in order to survive, are important. But, in every ethnic group in subcommunities dominated by drug use and sales, families are the most important social unit—particularly so given the paucity of institutional infrastructure in most economically impoverished areas. Although drug users in poor minority subcommunities are predominantly from single-parent, female-headed households, the same is true of those adolescents who do not use drugs (Fitzpatrick, 1990). Whether or not there is an intact nuclear family, the most important family inhibitions against drug use (either through predisposition or through reinforcement) may be the active involvement of multiple adults—in the immediate or extended family or even among nonfamily members—in the lives of young people who are environmentally at risk (see, for example, Kellam et al., 1983; Zimmerman and Maton, 1992).

Another unknown is how differential aspects of African-American, Puerto Rican, Mexican-American, and other cultures serve as barriers to or promoters of drug use, as mediating factors in the initiation and conduct of drug use, and potential influences on the routes by which users can become drug free. Blount and Dembo (1984) assessed levels of alcohol and marijuana use among approximately 1,000 Cuban and Puerto Rican youths in inner-city junior high schools, using questionnaires based on extensive ethnographic work in these areas, which incorporated local cultural patterns by paying particular attention to perceptions of the "toughness" and level of drug involvement in the respondents' immediate neighborhoods. The results provide a textured picture of the differing contingencies that inner-city youths confront.

Participation in street culture during leisure hours was highly correlated with marijuana use, especially in the toughest neighborhoods (Blount and Dembo, 1984). The correlation between respondent and peer group marijuana use was appreciably stronger in the tougher, more drug-involved neighborhoods. In other words, in tough neighborhoods, you are either with the pot smokers or not—it is rare to have close friends among abstainers and smokers at the same time. In contrast, alcohol use was not correlated with street culture—it cut across neighborhood differences, and the positive association between respondent and peer group alcohol use was about the same everywhere. The attitudes, peer group relations, and adult role models of nonusers, alcohol-only, and alcohol-and-marijuana users were consistently different. Beyond these differences, the need to choose starkly between friendships with tough kids—who are usually marijuana users—and friendships with nonusers was a fact of life in the toughest neighborhoods, one that youths in less combative zones—even in the inner city—could more readily finesse, and one that was not present with respect to alcohol, regardless of neighborhood.

Relationships Among Risk Factors

Young people who engage in one form of health-compromising behavior are often engaged in other problem behaviors (Jessor and Jessor, 1977). The co-occurrence of alcohol and other drug abuse with delinquency and criminal behavior is well established (Elliott et al., 1985; Hawkins et al. 1987; White, 1990). From the perspective of temporal order (and thus relevant to predispositions), the first involvement in delinquent activity usually predates illicit drug use. But findings from a number of longitudinal studies (e.g., Jones, 1968, 1971; McCord and McCord, 1962; Monnelly et al., 1983; Ricks and Berry, 1970; Robins, 1966, 1978) suggest that drug use and antisocial behavior in adolescents have similar precursors: aggressive behavior, school conduct problems, poor grades, and, less certainly, shyness, anxiety, depression, and problems in peer relationships. Early alcohol and drug use along with violent or predatory behavior and early and aggressive sexual behavior seem to be part of a general pattern of rebellion and nonconformity variously called a ''deviance syndrome," "antisocial personality," "conduct disorder," or "adolescent adjustment disorder."

In an analysis based on a national longitudinal study of 11-17-year-old youths in 1976, Elliott and Morse (1987) demonstrated the interrelationship of drug use, delinquency, sexual activity, and pregnancy. They found that 71 percent of the males and 52 percent of the females who were using multiple illicit drugs were sexually active, compared with 10 percent of the males and 3 percent of the females who were not using any drugs. Along similar lines were results of a study of nearly 1,000 adolescents in Los Angeles in grades 7-9 who were resurveyed in grades 10-12 (Newcomb et al., 1986). About 51 percent of the high school age sample had used marijuana at some time. But only 22 percent of those with none of the risk factors identified (low grade point average, lack of religious participation, poor relationship with parents, early alcohol use, low self-esteem, lack of conformity, sensation seeking, perception of ease of obtaining drugs, perception of neutral or favorable norms concerning drug use) had used marijuana, compared with 94 percent of those with 7 or more risk factors. These results were consistent for all other drugs and for higher levels of consumption. About 8 percent of the sample were using marijuana on a daily basis. Of youths in the sample with zero risk factors, however, less than 1 percent were daily marijuana users; of those with 7 or more risk factors, 56 percent were daily marijuana users.

No single predisposing factor dominates these analyses; rather, movement toward drug problems seems to proceed by the accumulation of small and mutually supporting effects over time—throughout early childhood and into the adolescent window of onset. The movement is a general drift toward adolescent problem behavior of various kinds and away from prosocial pursuits. If this drift across a continuum into increasingly problematic areas is indeed the principal type of causal process predisposing toward drug use, and particularly toward the higher (and more diversified) levels of consumption that mark abuse and dependence, then a preventive approach that attends systematically to a broad range of variables across a span of childhood years would be highly attractive. It is similar in this regard to the gradual accumulation of risk for heart disease and cancer from the cumulative effects of relatively innocuous discrete acts and gradually changing behavior patterns. Risk factor research thus seems to lead fairly directly to a developmental turn.

Research Needs

The study of multiple risk factors and their interaction appears to present substantial advances over attention to single factors or limited clusters of factors. This is not to say that more tightly focused studies should not be undertaken, but that such studies are best viewed as leading toward results that can be incorporated into larger-scale multivariate studies. There are needs for refinement of risk-factor research in several directions, but one in particular deserves emphasis here: methodological investment in improving techniques of measurement, particularly of environmental factors.

A major reason for improved measurement is to avoid statistical biases (descriptive and inferential) in multivariate analyses. For example, factors such as personality traits are generally measured by multi-item scales administered to the individual and scored to identify the extent of individual variation from population parameters. In contrast, factors such as neighborhood quality, which urban researchers find can vary literally by the block in many areas, are usually measured at the level of the census tract or larger geographic swaths, using such proxies as average housing cost or population density, aggregated into quartiles, or loose "urbanicity" measures based on proximity to traditional city cores. The measurement error (in terms of an accurate index of the individual's experience) that accrues from averaging across many blocks and then assigning individuals into such large, often ill-fitting categories ensures that, even if neighborhood quality or other collective characteristics were a powerful influence on the individual's behavior, these effects would be virtually precluded from statistical detection. This measurement bias would lead to false negative or Type II errors, in contrast to the likelihood that weak but transitory effects may be detected by finely calibrated personality variables that are measured at the individual level, leading to false-positive or Type I errors.

A Model of Progressive Problem Behavior

A four-stage model of behavioral problems accumulating across time, which draws together a large literature (Kumpfer, 1989), has been described by Schaps and Battistich (1991). This model suggests that socialization deficits in early childhood lead young people to affiliate with peers opposed to traditional institutions (such as school), a tendency that culminates in social alienation and trouble with the law (and other conventional institutions of society) in late adolescence and adulthood. This model parallels the logical progression of drug use to abuse to dependence, in that a relatively small proportion of youths who embark on the path of drug use continue on to dependence.

In the first stage of the model, poor parenting (or, more generally, childrearing) practices in the family or among major alternative caretakers, which are evident during the preschool years, lead to low emotional attachment to parents, resistance to parental authority, early behavioral and emotional problems, and generalized developmental immaturity (poor attention span, poor impulse control). Negative parenting practices include low levels of parental affection, lack of concern and insensitivity to the child's needs, lack of supervision, hostility, rejection, and very inconsistent or punitive discipline. If parenting practices to which the child is subject do not improve, these patterns of poor family bonding become more violent and reciprocal as the child grows beyond preschool.

Although family economic conditions do not directly determine parenting practices, high levels of stress and disorganization degrade parenting performance, and these levels of stress are more common when family economic resources are scarce and when the neighborhood environment is itself impoverished and disorganized. The effects of discrimination based on race or ethnicity add to these stressors.

In the second stage, poor socialization in the family leads to emotional and conduct problems in school grades 1-3. Peers and teachers respond antagonistically to poorly socialized behavior, and the child in turn is beset by social isolation or rejection, anxiety, insecurity, and continued conflicts with authority. The course of this second stage is obviously affected by the ability of the classroom teacher to adapt to poorly socialized children and educe not simply a modicum of compliance but rather positive bonding with the school, its staff, and other students.

In the third stage, middle to late elementary grades 3-6, persistent problems in social adaptation result in decreased learning and poor grades. Deficient academic performance in turn creates isolation from and rejection by more academically competent peers; problems in adaptation to school transform into active alienation from school. It is among these youths that the early onset of tobacco or alcohol use, and in some instances marijuana as well, will occur.

In the fourth stage, junior high school continuing on into high school, students disaffected from schooling firmly withdraw their efforts from academic or any other school-organized pursuits, become more overtly rebellious, and associate with each other in increasing opposition to academically competent and socially conventional peers, who reciprocate the hostility. An increasingly exclusive association with alienated peers intensifies into a school-oppositional peer group culture (Willis, 1977), characterized by expressive rejection of the conventional social norms and values, continuing academic failure, alcohol and drug use, delinquent activities, sexual behavior resulting in pregnancy, and a higher probability of early school exit.

Schools themselves unintentionally further perpetuate this "clustering" of alienated adolescents by their policies of remedial education placement and detention—activites that group these students together (Oetting and Beauvias, 1987).

Interventions that assume school-based peer ties and adult-student solidarity will not be appropriate to committed members of the school-oppositional culture. Interventions that work as a reinforcer or accelerator of antidrug trends in the school-solidary culture may have null or even rebound effects in the school-oppositional one. In most schools, oppositional norms characterize a marginalized, limited proportion of students. In some, these hold the allegiance of a large fraction or even the majority, for example, in "special schools" for disciplinary problems, schools for emotionally disturbed youths, and schools that experience drop-out rates prior to high school graduation of 50 percent or higher (Lorion et al., 1989).

The school-oppositional culture is resilient, a bed of resistance or rebellion that responds strongly to attempts to affect it; it "pushes back" in ways that rebound into the larger society. Efforts to vilify characteristic practices or rituals of oppositional groups may have the perverse effect of strengthening those practices or amplifying the groups' sense of distance and rejection. In cultures formed out of economic and normative marginalization, particularly within communities that are precariously bound to begin with, all identity appears to be formed around antimainstream attitudes; those involved, however, do in fact claim to hold many mainstream values despite some forms of denial or nonparticipation—a good example being the drug dealer who says "I'm a businessman."

Entry into the later stages of systematic, deep-seated deviance implies that earlier stages have probably occurred. But some children who become academically troubled or transfer all of their loyalty into school-oppositional culture have not experienced all of the earlier stages. School opposition may not reflect alienation from family, for example, if the school is not generally integrated into a subculture, which is evidently the case in certain Native American and Mexican-American communities in metropolitan and rural areas. Nor will all the individuals at any one stage progress to later ones. In major longitudinal studies, no more than 30-40 percent of the early elementary children who displayed behavior problems engaged in antisocial behavior, delinquency, or drug abuse in adolescence (Robins, 1978). Parenting practices can improve or deteriorate over time, as family structures change through divorce or remarriage, parents mature, marital discord emerges, etc. An unusually positive school experience may counter a poor home environment; strong academic aptitude may prevail despite conduct problems; or uncompensated learning disabilities may erode initially successful academic work and school attachment.

Taking the Model Seriously: Reforming the School

Despite the many sources of variance described above, the model of problem-behavior development has strong theoretical appeal and a variety of empirical supports. It is gaining increasing attention due to concern over the steady diminution in social attentiveness to children and a generalized social deficit in parenting, of which the more extreme cases of child abuse are only a fraction. Much has been written about the relative demise of the two-parent nuclear and the extended family (Schroeder, 1989), the disappearance of personal neighborhoods and other forms of continuous local community (Green, 1990), and the increasing separation of children and youth from adult workplaces and occupational pursuits (McMillan and Chavis, 1986). These trends have resulted in the separation of children from adults in a way that is historically unprecedented. They have also served to limit caring, stable relationships between children and adults and to deprive children of meaningful exposure to a range of adult models and situations.

It is largely through close relationships with adults—mostly in the roles of parents, relatives, and teachers—that children learn how to function as adults and develop motivation to take on adult responsibilities. As they are stripped of opportunities for such relationships, it is media portrayals to which they must increasingly turn for information about "what to become." The open, pluralistic character of American society and the great freedom that this potentially provides to select personal behavior is, in a sense, lost on children whose ideas and aspirations are increasingly encapsulated within a peer social system whose culture is heavily oriented to electronic media figures—surreal, postural, and fantastic—especially when they are antagonistic to schools and other conventional institutions.

The societal trends are pervasive, cutting across virtually all demographic categories. The observation is becoming increasingly common that vast numbers of American children are now "at risk" (see Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989; National Commission on the Role of the School and the Community in Improving Adolescent Health, 1990). There is undoubtedly variation in the degree to which children are lacking in sustained adult connections and guidance, are excluded from exposure to responsible adult roles, and are living in environments saturated with opportunities for problem behaviors. It is probable that such conditions now prevail in extreme forms for many and in milder ones for most children, and that widespread experimentation with problem behaviors, including drug abuse in one form or another, may prove endemic, even though waves of such behavior will advance and recede.

American schools have changed less in the past few generations than have the other major socializing institutions. Indeed, it appears highly problematic that schools have changed so little in the face of dramatic changes elsewhere. Most schools, rather than trying to compensate for the growing deficiencies in students' lives, are deemphasizing personal relationships between children and teachers (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989). Instead, their focus is on rigor and efficiency, in reaction to recent concerns about academic achievement, particularly in science and mathematics. Strengthening child-adult relationships is simply not viewed as a priority in how schools are organized and how teacher time is allocated. The typical classroom is structured, impersonal, and formal (Goodlad, 1984), and students are given little opportunity to take guided responsibility for their own learning or to learn service to others.

Other school characteristics compound this problem. Curricula heavily focused on developing basic cognitive skills and acquiring facts provide students few opportunities to demonstrate mastery, to see connections with "real life," or to develop the higher-order cognitive skills and social competencies they will need to experience satisfying interpersonal relationships, to resist dysfunctional social pressures, and to take on adult roles. Most schools rely on competitive evaluation systems and pervasive use of extrinsic rewards, practices that adversely affect many children's sense of competence, self-esteem, intrinsic motivation for learning, and actual performance (Deci and Ryan, 1985).

As a result, students' motivation to learn seems to be declining; many students see classroom work as meaningless and not worth the effort to succeed (Ames, in press; Zimiles, 1986). The impersonal competitive classroom atmosphere alienates many as they progress through school, leading to negative perceptions of self-worth, reduced academic efforts, more frequent misbehavior. Schools may respond by imposing an even heavier "curriculum of control" (Knitzer et al., 1990), and the downward spiral ensues.

In recognition of these and other problems, some recent thinking in education has begun to shift toward a greater concern with developmental relevance (Katz, 1989), promotion of intrinsic motivation (Deci and Ryan, 1985; Nicholls, 1989), the active role of the learner as a "maker of meaning" (Resnick, 1989), attention to social and moral development as a legitimate aspect of the curriculum (Ryan, 1986), and the importance of whether the school is a "caring community" (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989). Although these perspectives are gaining attention, for the most part they have not been translated into research and practical applications.

To the degree that an interaction among several influences determines the occurrence of problem behaviors (Goodstadt, 1986; Huba et al., 1980), preventive interventions should provide a set of mutually reinforcing positive influences that affect all of the relevant socializing agencies (the peer group, the family, the school, the wider social community). This is in contrast to the notion that only one or two primary variables should be addressed (e.g., lack of accurate knowledge about drugs, poor resistance or assertiveness skills, early antisocial habits of behavior; see Durlak, 1985; Klitzner et al., 1985). Of course, a multilevel intervention strategy is much more demanding than one concentrating on one or two variables.

One important strand of prevention is focused on reforming the school. This reform movement views prevention not as a circumscribed, limited-duration, add-on module of curriculum designed to contravene certain negative possibilities (Moskowitz, 1987a, 1987b) but as a comprehensive effect of an entire climate of school experience that facilitates and promotes positive, effective socialization. The content of this reform includes revision of organizational structures, classroom management practices, school policies, teacher-student relationships, and instructional approaches with the intention of fostering children's social, personal, and academic development. These reforms are intended to commence with the first school exposure in the primary grades, so that the preventive effects are fully transmitted well before the early second decade when the onset of problems such as illicit drug use—which problems are most persistent and least amenable to remedial intervention—occur.

Research is particularly needed on the role of school organization, environment, norms, policies, and social processes and their effects on problem behaviors such as drug and alcohol use, abuse, and dependence. The school as a social institution has received much less attention in research on drug abuse prevention than have the characteristics of individual children, their families, and their peer groups. Psychological paradigms have dominated the prevention research in drug abuse; sociological paradigms have been less influential in this as in other fields of health behavior.

Prevention research needs to be diffused across the preschool and elementary levels as well as secondary school ages; the balance of concentration has been badly off kilter in the direction of middle and junior high school cohorts, in which the unprevented problems manifest themselves. Only when research is focused on this longer period can we identify critical stages and factors of development—if there are any—for problems that persist and become increasingly serious in adolescence—and hence do a better job of selecting optimal times, types, and intensities of intervention.

• Social Influence And Social Learning

In Chapter 1 , we reviewed evidence concerning the role of cigarette smoking as a gateway to further drug consumption. The relationship established between smoking and other drug use passes various important tests of causality: appropriate temporal ordering; a substantial level of correlation, which does not vanish under multivariate analysis; a clearly described and well-studied set of intervening mechanisms (particularly, in this instance, differential access to systems of distribution); the existence of scalable dose-response relationships; and, finally, demonstration that the relationship holds across varying population groups, such as those of differing socioeconomic status. The committee took this not as evidence that cigarette smoking inevitably causes drug use, but as evidence that the prevention of smoking could help forestall, if not prevent, the onset of drug use.

Even if cigarettes did not hold this special salience for the onset of illicit drug use, significant attention would have to be given to smoking in this report. For cigarette smoking, due to its well-established role in the genesis of lung cancer, heart disease, and numerous other health problems, has been subject to some of the best-known and well-documented public health promotion and disease prevention campaigns of the last 40 years (see Warner, 1977). Cigarettes were a major focus not only of mass media programs but also pioneering large-scale experiments in cardiovascular risk reduction beginning in the early 1970s (the Stanford 3-community and 5-community studies by Farquhar and associates [1990] and the North Karelia project in Finland reported by Puska and colleagues [1981; 1985]). The large-scale study of smoking reduction continues today with the city-level COMMIT and state-level ASSIST trials supported by the National Cancer Institute.

Smoking was also the focus of an influential school-based prevention program conducted and reported by Evans and colleagues (Evans and Raines, 1982), which has become the model for a succession of closely watched school-based drug abuse prevention programs organized by researchers and conducted along experimental and quasi-experimental lines in the 1980s. The national "Just Say No" campaign publicized by Nancy Reagan leaned on this line of research for its justification. Flay (1987) has defined four generations of such studies, differing in the scale of experimentation, rigor of design, and quality and intensity of measurement: (1) the early pilot studies by Evans and colleagues; (2) more extensive pilot experiments by research groups based at Stanford and Minnesota (McAlister et al., 1980); (3) substantial field experiments by the latter teams and others in Scandinavia (Puska et al., 1985) and Los Angeles (Johnson et al., 1986); and (4) long-term multisite programs such as the Waterloo trials in Canada (Flay et al., 1985), the Kansas City and Indianapolis STAR studies of the USC Midwestern Prevention Project (Pentz et al., 1989), and the RAND Corporation's Project ALERT (Ellickson and Bell, 1990). One might add to this last generation a series of more comprehensive school health curriculum evaluations directed not specifically at drug abuse prevention but including at least prevention of smoking onset as a dependent variable (Connell and Turner, 1985; Connell et al., 1985).

Many programs are theory based, specifying which risk factors or mediating variables they are trying to change and measuring whether these are in fact changed by program exposure. Studies of social influence intervention studies have measured changes in information, in specifically instructed interactive skills, and in normative expectations regarding alcohol, tobacco, and drug use. MacKinnon et al. (1991) analyzed the first year of the Kansas City STAR program and found that a large share of the observed desirable effects were best explained by changes in normative expectations among program-exposed youth.

The fundamental work of Evans and colleagues (Evans, 1976; Evans et al. 1978, 1981) relied heavily on McGuire's (1964) "social inoculation" and "resistance to persuasive communication" theories for background. They drew most heavily, however, on Bandura's (1977, 1982, 1986) theories of social learning and his prescriptions for enhancing perceived self-efficacy: (1) specifying very explicit and proximal goals of training—in this case, resistance skills; (2) promoting accomplishments of performance through participation and practice; (3) providing models of successful behavior—in this case, peer models; and (4) providing task-specific feedback to reinforce and validate successful performance.

The most fully developed, research-based, social-influence programs are cast from a single mold. Virtually all are based on a core of junior high or middle school classroom lessons given by regular teachers, trained "peer leaders," or specialized health educators. The curriculum runs through a sequence of modules attending to predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing factors, with central attention to the development of resistance behaviors against the initial opportunity to use drugs (tobacco, alcohol, or marijuana) in a peer group context. Ellickson et al. (1988:vi-vii) give a cogent sketch of a typical lesson plan, the 7th and 8th grade ALERT program:

The first two lessons are intended to develop motivation to resist by sharpening students' perception of the seriousness of drug use and by revealing their personal susceptibility to the harmful effects of such use [predispositional factors]. The next three lessons focus on resistance skills—helping students to identify pressures to use drugs, counter prodrug messages and learn how to say "no" to both internal and external pressures [enabling factors]. The final three sessions reinforce the earlier content and clarify the benefits of resistance. During the eighth grade, students receive a three-session booster curriculum designed to reinforce resistance skills learned the previous year [reinforcing factors]. The curriculum provides multiple opportunities for student participation—role playing, question and answer techniques, small group activities, individual and group practice in saying "no," and written exercises.

There is some diversity among social influence researchers in how narrowly or broadly the programs are defined. Pentz et al. (1989) have proposed embedding the school-based curriculum within more comprehensive school and community efforts, for example, efforts to invigorate school antidrug policies and to mobilize community-wide awareness and support. Most of the research, however, has been focused on the curriculum component. There are differences here as well concerning the degree to which there is an emphasis on building general social competence or skills (such as assertiveness) in addition to ones targeted specifically at resisting peer-stimulated drug onset. This division between targeting proximal variables that will affect drug behavior but not (according to design) much else versus generic training that may have effects in many directions is characteristic of the larger school health education field, which has moved increasingly from categorical toward comprehensive programming (Green and Iverson, 1982; Kolbe and Iverson, 1983).

A particular problem with social influence models is the implicit assumption that school-based influence encompasses all young people. The needs for recognition of many youths, especially economically disadvantaged children in inner cities, are not well enough served by the schools to lead them to look to schools or even to their peers within the school framework for practical or moral instruction. These youths largely define themselves by their street peer loyalties, not by school district lines. Peer influences, as defined in research literature, are too often generalized as though all adolescents were culturally homogeneous; there is not enough research that recognizes the specific features of ethnic and street culture (Becker et al., 1989).

The foundations of social influence theory were in relatively small-scale social psychological studies, and more of these are needed now to extend our understanding of influence processes. More fundamental research is needed on small groups with a variety of youth-cultural affiliations. The careful studies in the 1950s and 1960s of institutionalized street gangs, including attempts to change them, are a model worth reconsidering.

Three principal approaches in drug abuse prevention research emerge from the recent past: the study of risk factors, the study of developmental sequences, and the study of social influence. It is helpful in seeing how these approaches relate to each other to note their differential emphasis on predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing elements or variables in the respective theories and methods of inquiry.

The risk factors under study include biological, personality, and socioeconomic variables. In general, under longitudinal study, risk factors seem to operate as individually small but cumulative causes of criterion behaviors. These studies generally suggest prevention strategies based on identification of the high-risk youths, those for whom many such factors apply. Studies of risk factors are hobbled by measurement deficiencies with respect to environmental variables in particular, and methodological investments and improvements in this respect are needed.

The developmental approach involves a more structured, sequential model of poor early parenting, school maladjustment, academic deficiency, and gravitation toward school-oppositional groups, which are seedbeds of illicit drug use and other disorderly and problem behaviors. This approach incorporates the general sense that there is a weakening of family bonds throughout the population and that primary schools, which may be more amenable to intervention—particularly experimental intervention—than family units, should be a key locus of study.

The study of social influences, largely in junior high school populations, has also been based on a highly structured theory derived from the concept of self-efficacy and its roots in social learning. While these theoretical foundations have been extensively researched and appear robust in many ways, there has not been enough study of the differentiated social and normative world of early adolescence. This applies particularly to the emergence and significance of norms strongly antagonistic to schools and to the perception by adolescents of prodrug or antidrug norms in their peers. These are critical reinforcing environments that may make or break intervention strategies, so it is critical to build a more systematic understanding of them.

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Richard Nixon

Special message to the congress on drug abuse prevention and control..

To the Congress of the United States:

In New York City more people between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five years die as a result of narcotics than from any other single cause.

In 1960, less than 200 narcotic deaths were recorded in New York City. In 1970, the figure had risen to over 1,000. These statistics do not reflect a problem indigenous to New York City. Although New York is the one major city in the Nation which has kept good statistics on drug addiction, the problem is national and international. We are moving to deal with it on both levels.

As part of this administration's ongoing efforts to stem the tide of drug abuse which has swept America in the last decade, we submitted legislation in July of 1969 for a comprehensive reform of Federal drug enforcement laws. Fifteen months later, in October, 1970, the Congress passed this vitally-needed legislation, and it is now producing excellent results. Nevertheless, in the fifteen months between the submission of that legislation and its passage, much valuable time was lost.

We must now candidly recognize that the deliberate procedures embodied in present efforts to control drug abuse are not sufficient in themselves. The problem has assumed the dimensions of a national emergency. I intend to take every step necessary to deal with this emergency, including asking the Congress for an amendment to my 1972 budget to provide an additional $155 million to carry out these steps. This will provide a total of $371 million for programs to control drug abuse in America.

A NEW APPROACH TO REHABILITATION

While experience thus far indicates that the enforcement provisions of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 are effective, they are not sufficient in themselves to. eliminate drug abuse. Enforcement must be coupled with a rational approach to the reclamation of the drug user himself. The laws of supply and demand function in the illegal drug business as in any other. We are taking steps under the Comprehensive Drug Act to deal with the supply side of the equation and I am recommending additional steps to be taken now. But we must also deal with demand. We must rehabilitate the drug user if we are to eliminate drug abuse and all the antisocial activities that flow from drug abuse.

Narcotic addiction is a major contributor to crime. The cost of supplying a narcotic habit can run from $30 a day to $100 a day. This is $210 to $700 a week, or $10,000 a year to over $36,000 a year. Untreated narcotic addicts do not ordinarily hold jobs. Instead, they often turn to shoplifting, mugging, burglary, armed robbery, and so on. They also support themselves by starting other people-young people--on drugs. The financial costs of addiction are more than $2 billion every year, but these costs can at least be measured. The human costs cannot. American society should not be required to bear either cost.

Despite the fact that drug addiction destroys lives, destroys families, and destroys communities, we are still not moving fast enough to meet the problem in an effective way. Our efforts are strained through the Federal bureaucracy. Of those we can reach at all under the present Federal system--and the number is relatively small--of those we try to help and who want help, we cure only a tragically small percentage.

Despite the magnitude of the problem, despite our very limited success in meeting it, and despite the common recognition of both circumstances, we nevertheless have thus far failed to develop a concerted effort to find a better solution to this increasingly grave threat. At present, there are nine Federal agencies involved in one fashion or another with the problem of drug addiction. There are anti-drug abuse efforts in Federal programs ranging from vocational rehabilitation to highway safety. In this manner our efforts have been fragmented through competing priorities, lack of communication, multiple authority, and limited and dispersed resources. The magnitude and the severity of the present threat will no longer permit this piecemeal and bureaucratically-dispersed effort at drug control. If we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely in time destroy us. I am not prepared to accept this alternative.

Therefore, I am transmitting legislation to the Congress to consolidate at the highest level a full-scale attack on the problem of drug abuse in America. I am proposing the appropriation of additional funds to meet the cost of rehabilitating drug users, and I will ask for additional funds to increase our enforcement efforts to further tighten the noose around the necks of drug peddlers, and thereby loosen the noose around the necks of drug users.

At the same time I am proposing additional steps to strike at the "supply" side of the drug equation--to halt the drug traffic by striking at the illegal producers of drugs, the growing of those plants from which drugs are derived, and trafficking in these drugs beyond our borders.

America has the largest number of heroin addicts of any nation in the world. And yet, America does not grow opium-of which heroin is a derivative--nor does it manufacture heroin, which is a laboratory process carried out abroad. This deadly poison in the American life stream is, in other words, a foreign import. In the last year, heroin seizures by Federal agencies surpassed the total seized in the previous ten years. Nevertheless, it is estimated that we are stopping less than 20 percent of the drugs aimed at this Nation. No serious attack on our national drug problem can ignore the international implications of such an effort, nor can the domestic effort succeed without attacking the problem on an international plane. I intend to do that.

A COORDINATED FEDERAL RESPONSE

Not very long ago, it was possible for Americans to persuade themselves, with some justification, that narcotic addiction was a class problem. Whether or not this was an accurate picture is irrelevant today, because now the problem is universal. But despite the increasing dimensions of the problem, and despite increasing consciousness of the problem, we have made little headway in understanding what is involved in drug abuse or how to deal with it.

The very nature of the drug abuse problem has meant that its extent and seriousness have been shrouded in secrecy, not only by the criminal elements who profit from drug use, but by the drug users themselves--the people whom society is attempting to reach and help. This fact has added immeasurably to the difficulties of medical assistance, rehabilitation, and government action to counter drug abuse, and to find basic and permanent methods to stop it. Even now, there are no precise national statistics as to the number of drug-dependent citizens in the United States, the rate at which drug abuse is increasing, or where and how this increase is taking place. Most of what we think we know is extrapolated from those few States and cities where the dimensions of the problem have forced closer attention, including the maintenance of statistics.

A large number of Federal Government agencies are involved in efforts to fight the drug problem either with new programs or by expanding existing programs. Many of these programs are still experimental in nature. This is appropriate. The problems of drug abuse must be faced on many fronts at the same time, and we do not yet know which efforts will be most successful. But we must recognize that piecemeal efforts, even where individually successful, cannot have a major impact on the drug abuse problem unless and until they are forged together into a broader and more integrated program involving all levels of government and private effort. We need a coordinated effort if we are to move effectively against drug abuse.

The magnitude of the problem, the national and international implications of the problem, and the limited capacities of States and cities to deal with the problem all reinforce the conclusion that coordination of this effort must take place at the highest levels of the Federal Government.

Therefore, I propose the establishment of a central authority with overall responsibility for all major Federal drug abuse prevention, education, treatment, rehabilitation, training, and research programs in all Federal agencies. This authority would be known as the Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention. It would be located within the Executive Office of the President and would be headed by a Director accountable to the President. Because this is an emergency response to a national problem which we intend to bring under control, the Office would be established to operate only for a period of three years from its date of enactment, and the President would have the option of extending its life for an additional two years if desirable.

This Office would provide strengthened Federal leadership in finding solutions to drug abuse problems. It would establish priorities and instill a sense of urgency in Federal and federally-supported drug abuse programs, and it would increase coordination between Federal, State, and local rehabilitation efforts.

More specifically, the Special Action Office would develop overall Federal strategy for drug abuse prevention programs, set program goals, objectives and priorities, carry out programs through other Federal agencies, develop guidance and standards for operating agencies, and evaluate performance of all programs to determine where success is being achieved. It would extend its efforts into research, prevention, training, education, treatment, rehabilitation, and the development of necessary reports, statistics, and social indicators for use by all public and private groups. It would not be directly concerned with the problems of reducing drug supply, or with the law enforcement aspects of drug abuse control.

It would concentrate on the "demand" side of the drug equation--the use and the user of drugs.

The program authority of the Director would be exercised through working agreements with other Federal agencies. In this fashion, full advantage would be taken of the skills and resources these agencies can bring to bear on solving drug abuse problems by linking them with a highly goal-oriented authority capable of functioning across departmental lines. By eliminating bureaucratic red tape, and jurisdictional disputes between agencies, the Special Action Office would do what cannot be done presently: it would mount a wholly coordinated national attack on a national problem. It would use all available resources of the Federal Government to identify the problems precisely, and it would allocate resources to attack those problems. In practice, implementing departments and agencies would be bound to meet specific terms and standards for performance. These terms and standards would be set forth under inter-agency agreement through a Program Plan defining objectives, costs, schedule, performance requirements, technical limits, and other factors essential to program success.

With the authority of the Program Plan, the Director of the Special Action Office could demand performance instead of hoping for it. Agencies would receive money based on performance and their retention of funding and program authority would depend upon periodic appraisal of their performance.

In order to meet the need for realistic central program appraisal, the Office would develop special program monitoring and evaluation capabilities so that it could realistically determine which activities and techniques were producing results. This evaluation would be tied to the planning process so that knowledge about success/failure results could guide the selection of future plans and priorities.

In addition to the inter-agency agreement and Program Plan approach described above, the Office would have direct authority to let grants or make contracts with industrial, commercial, or nonprofit organizations. This authority would be used in specific instances where there is no appropriate Federal agency prepared to undertake a program, or where for some other reason it would be faster, cheaper, or more effective to grant or contract directly.

Within the broad mission of the Special Action Office, the Director would set specific objectives for accomplishment during the first three years of Office activity. These objectives would target such areas as reduction in the overall national rate of drug addiction, reduction in drug-related deaths, reduction of drug use in schools, impact on the number of men rejected for military duty because of drug abuse, and so forth. A primary objective of the Office would be the development of a reliable set of social indicators which accurately show the nature, extent, and trends in the drug abuse problem.

These specific targets for accomplishment would act to focus the efforts of the drug abuse prevention program, not on intermediate achievements such as numbers of treatments given or educational programs conducted, but rather on ultimate "payoff" accomplishments in the reduction of the human and social costs of drug abuse. Our programs cannot be judged on the fulfillment of quotas and other bureaucratic indexes of accomplishment. They must be judged by the number of human beings who are brought out of the hell of addiction, and by the number of human beings who are dissuaded from entering that hell.

I urge the Congress to give this proposal the highest priority, and I trust it will do so. Nevertheless, due to the need for immediate action, I am issuing today, June 17, an Executive Order [11599] establishing within the Executive Office of the President a Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention. Until the Congress passes the legislation giving full authority to this Office, a Special Consultant to the President for Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs will institute to the extent legally possible the functions of the Special Action Office.

REHABILITATION: A NEW PRIORITY

When traffic in narcotics is no longer profitable, then that traffic will cease. Increased enforcement and vigorous application of the fullest penalties provided by law are two of the steps in rendering narcotics trade unprofitable. But as long as there is a demand, there will be those willing to take the risks of meeting the demand. So we must also act to destroy the market for drugs, and this means the prevention of new addicts, and the rehabilitation of those who are addicted.

To do this, I am asking the Congress for a total of $105 million in addition to funds already contained in my 1972 budget to be used solely for the treatment and rehabilitation of drug-addicted individuals.

I will also ask the Congress to provide an additional $10 million in funds to increase and improve education and training in the field of dangerous drugs. This will increase the money available for education and training to more than $24 million. It has become fashionable to suppose that no drugs are as dangerous as they are commonly thought to be, and that the use of some drugs entails no risk at all. These are misconceptions, and every day we reap the tragic results of these misconceptions when young people are "turned on" to drugs believing that narcotics addiction is something that happens to other people. We need an expanded effort to show that addiction is all too often a one-way street beginning with "innocent" experimentation and ending in death. Between these extremes is the degradation that addiction inflicts on those who believed that it could not happen to them.

While by no means a major part of the American narcotics problem, an especially disheartening aspect of that problem involves those of our men in Vietnam who have used drugs. Peer pressures combine with easy availability to foster drug use. We are taking steps to end the availability of drugs in South Vietnam but, in addition, the nature of drug addiction, and the peculiar aspects of the present problem as it involves veterans, make it imperative that rehabilitation procedures be undertaken immediately. In Vietnam, for example, heroin is cheap and 95 percent pure, and its effects are commonly achieved through smoking or "snorting" the drug. In the United States, the drug is impure, consisting of only about 5 percent heroin, and it must be "mainlined" or injected into the bloodstream to achieve an effect comparable to that which may have been experienced in Vietnam. Further, a habit which costs $5 a day to maintain in Vietnam can cost $100 a day to maintain in the United States, and those who continue to use heroin slip into the twilight world of crime, bad drugs, and all too often a premature death.

In order to expedite the rehabilitation process of Vietnam veterans, I have ordered the immediate establishment of testing procedures and initial rehabilitation efforts to be taken in Vietnam. This procedure is under way and testing will commence in a matter of days. The Department of Defense will provide rehabilitation programs to all servicemen being returned for discharge who want this help, and we will be requesting legislation to permit the military services to retain for treatment any individual due for discharge who is a narcotic addict. All of our servicemen must be accorded the right to rehabilitation.

Rehabilitation procedures, which are required subsequent to discharge, will be effected under the aegis of the Director of the Special Action Office who will have the authority to refer patients to private hospitals as well as VA hospitals as circumstances require.

The Veterans Administration medical facilities are a great national resource which can be of immeasurable assistance in the effort against this grave national problem. Restrictive and exclusionary use of these facilities under present statutes means that we are wasting a critically needed national resource. We are commonly closing the doors to those who need help the most. This is a luxury we cannot afford. Authority will be sought by the new Office to make the facilities of the Veterans Administration available to all former servicemen in need of drug rehabilitation, regardless of the nature of their discharge from the service.

I am asking the Congress to increase the present budget of the Veterans Administration by $14 million to permit the immediate initiation of this program. This money would be used to assist in the immediate development and emplacement of VA rehabilitation centers which will permit both inpatient and outpatient care of addicts in a community setting.

I am also asking that the Congress amend the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act of 1966 to broaden the authority under this Act for the use of methadone maintenance programs. These programs would be carried out under the most rigid standards and would be subjected to constant and painstaking reevaluation of their effectiveness. At this time, the evidence indicates that methadone is a useful tool in the work of rehabilitating heroin addicts, and that tool ought to be available to those who must do this work.

Finally, I will instruct the Special Consultant for Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to review immediately all Federal laws pertaining to rehabilitation and I will submit any legislation needed to expedite the Federal rehabilitative role, and to correct overlapping authorities and other shortcomings.

ADDITIONAL ENFORCEMENT NEEDS

The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 provides a sound base for the attack on the problem of the availability of narcotics in America. In addition to tighter and more enforceable regulatory controls, the measure provides law enforcement with stronger and better tools. Equally important, the Act contains credible and proper penalties against violators of the drug law. Severe punishments are invoked against the drug pushers and peddlers while more lenient and flexible sanctions are provided for the users. A seller can receive fifteen years for a first offense involving hard narcotics, thirty years if the sale is to a minor, and up to life in prison if the transaction is part of a continuing criminal enterprise.

These new penalties allow judges more discretion, which we feel will restore credibility to the drug control laws and eliminate some of the difficulties prosecutors and judges have had in the past arising out of minimum mandatory penalties for all violators.

The penalty structure in the 1970 Drug Act became effective on May 1 of this year. While it is too soon to assess its effect, I expect it to help enable us to deter or remove from our midst those who traffic in narcotics and other dangerous drugs.

To complement the new Federal drug law, a uniform State drug control law has been drafted and recommended to the States. Nineteen States have already adopted it and others have it under active consideration. Adoption of this uniform law will facilitate joint and effective action by all levels of government.

Although I do not presently anticipate a necessity for alteration of the purposes or principles of existing enforcement statutes, there is a clear need for some additional enforcement legislation.

To help expedite the prosecution of narcotic trafficking cases, we are asking the Congress to provide legislation which would permit the United States Government to utilize information obtained by foreign police, provided that such information was obtained in compliance with the laws of that country.

We are also asking that the Congress provide legislation which would permit a chemist to submit written findings of his analysis in drug cases. This would speed the process of criminal justice.

The problems of addict identification are equalled and surpassed by the problem of drug identification. To expedite work in this area of narcotics enforcement, I am asking the Congress to provide $2 million to be allotted to the research and development of equipment and techniques for the detection of illegal drugs and drug traffic.

I am asking the Congress to provide $2 million to the Department of Agriculture for research and development of herbicides which can be used to destroy growths of narcotics-producing plants without adverse ecological effects.

I am asking the Congress to authorize and fund 325 additional positions within the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to increase their capacity for apprehending those engaged in narcotics trafficking here and abroad and to investigate domestic industrial producers of drugs.

Finally, I am asking the Congress to provide a supplemental appropriation of $25.6 million for the Treasury Department. This will increase funds available to this Department for drug abuse control to nearly $45 million. Of this sum, $18.1 million would be used to enable the Bureau of Customs to develop the technical capacity to deal with smuggling by air and sea, to increase the investigative staff charged with pursuit and apprehension of smugglers, and to increase inspection personnel who search persons, baggage, and cargo entering the country. The remaining $7.5 million would permit the Internal Revenue Service to intensify investigation of persons involved in large-scale narcotics trafficking.

These steps would strengthen our efforts to root out the cancerous growth of narcotics addiction in America. It is impossible to say that the enforcement legislation I have asked for here will be conclusive--that we will not need further legislation. We cannot fully know at this time what further steps will be necessary. As those steps define themselves, we will be prepared to seek further legislation to take any action and every action necessary to wipe out the menace of drug addiction in America. But domestic enforcement alone cannot do the job. If we are to stop the flow of narcotics into the lifeblood of this country, I believe we must stop it at the source.

INTERNATIONAL

There are several broad categories of drugs: those of the cannabis family-such as marihuana and hashish; those which are used as sedatives, such as the barbiturates and certain tranquilizers; those which elevate mood and suppress appetite, such as the amphetamines; and, drugs such as LSD and mescaline, which are commonly called hallucinogens. Finally, there are the narcotic analgesics, including opium and its derivatives-morphine and codeine. Heroin is made from morphine.

Heroin addiction is the most difficult to control and the most socially destructive form of addiction in America today. Heroin is a fact of life and a cause of death among an increasing number of citizens in America, and it is heroin addiction that must command priority in the struggle against drugs.

To wage an effective war against heroin addiction, we must have international cooperation. In order to secure such cooperation, I am initiating a worldwide escalation in our existing programs for the control of narcotics traffic, and I am proposing a number of new steps for this purpose.

First, on Monday, June 14, I recalled the United States Ambassadors to Turkey, France, Mexico, Luxembourg, Thailand, the Republic of Vietnam, and the United Nations for consultations on how we can better cooperate with other nations in the effort to regulate the present substantial world opium output and narcotics trafficking. I sought to make it equally clear that I consider the heroin addiction of American citizens an international problem of grave concern to this Nation, and I instructed our Ambassadors to make this clear to their host governments. We want good relations with other countries, but we cannot buy good relations at the expense of temporizing on this problem.

Second, United States Ambassadors to all East Asian governments will meet in Bangkok, Thailand, tomorrow, June 18, to review the increasing problem in that area, with particular .concern for the effects of this problem on American servicemen in Southeast Asia.

Third, it is clear that the only really effective way to end heroin production is to end opium production and the growing of poppies. I will propose that as an international goal. It is essential to recognize that opium is, at present, a legitimate source of income to many of those nations which produce it. Morphine and codeine both have legitimate medical applications.

It is the production of morphine and codeine for medical purposes which justifies the maintenance of opium production, and it is this production which in turn contributes to the world's heroin supply. The development of effective substitutes for these derivatives would eliminate any valid reason for opium production. While modern medicine has developed effective and broadly-used substitutes for morphine, it has yet to provide a fully acceptable substitute for codeine. Therefore, I am directing that Federal research efforts in the United States be intensified with the aim of developing at the earliest possible date synthetic substitutes for all opium derivatives. At the same time I am requesting the Director General of the World Health Organization to appoint a study panel of experts to make periodic technical assessments of any synthetics which might replace opiates with the aim of effecting substitutions as soon as possible.

Fourth, I am requesting $I million to be used by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs for training of foreign narcotics enforcement officers. Additional personnel within the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs would permit the strengthening of the investigative capacities of BNDD offices in the U.S., as well as their ability to assist host governments in the hiring, training, and deployment of personnel and the procurement of necessary equipment for drug abuse control.

Fifth, I am asking the Congress to amend and approve the International Security Assistance Act of 1971 and the International Development and Humanitarian Assistance Act of 1971 to permit assistance to presently proscribed nations in their efforts to end drug trafficking. The drug problem crosses ideological boundaries and surmounts national differences. If we are barred in any way in our effort to deal with this matter, our efforts will be crippled, and our will subject to question. I intend to leave no room for other nations to question our commitment to this matter.

Sixth, we must recognize that cooperation in control of dangerous drugs works both ways. While the sources of our chief narcotics problem are foreign, the United States is a source of illegal psychotropic drugs which afflict other nations. If we expect other governments to help stop the flow of heroin to our shores, we must act with equal vigor to prevent equally dangerous substances from going into their nations from our own. Accordingly, I am submitting to the Senate for its advice and consent the Convention on Psychotropic Substances which was recently signed by the United States and 22 other nations. In addition, I will submit to the Congress any legislation made necessary by the Convention including the complete licensing, inspection, and control of the manufacture, distribution, and trade in dangerous synthetic drugs.

Seventh, the United States has already pledged $2 million to a Special Fund created on April 1 of this year by the Secretary General of the United Nations and aimed at planning and executing a concerted UN effort against the world drug problem. We will continue our strong backing of UN drug-control efforts by encouraging other countries to contribute and by requesting the Congress to make additional contributions to this fund as their need is demonstrated.

Finally, we have proposed, and we are strongly urging multilateral support for, amendments to the Single Convention on Narcotics which would enable the International Narcotics Control Board to:

--require from signatories details about opium poppy cultivation and opium production-thus permitting the Board access to essential information about narcotics raw materials from which illicit diversion occurs;

---base its decisions about the various nations' activities with narcotic drugs not only as at present on information officially submitted by the governments, but also on information which the Board obtains through public or private sources--thus enhancing data available to the Board in regard to illicit traffic;

--carry out, with the consent of the nation concerned, on-the-spot inquiries on drug related activities;

--modify signatories' annual estimates of intended poppy acreage and opium production with a view to reducing acreage or production; and

--in extreme cases, require signatories to embargo the export and/or import of drugs to or from a particular country that has failed to meet its obligations under the Convention.

I believe the foregoing proposals establish a new and needed dimension in the international effort to halt drug production, drug traffic, and drug abuse. These proposals put the problems and the search for solutions in proper perspective, and will give this Nation its best opportunity to end the flow of drugs, and most particularly heroin, into America, by literally cutting it off root and branch at the source.

Narcotics addiction is a problem which afflicts both the body and the soul of America. It is a problem which baffles many Americans. In our history we have faced great difficulties again and again, wars and depressions and divisions among our people have tested our will as a people-and we have prevailed.

We have fought together in war, we have worked together in hard times, and we have reached out to each other in division--to close the gaps between our people and keep America whole.

The threat of narcotics among our people is one which properly frightens many Americans. It comes quietly into homes and destroys children, it moves into neighborhoods and breaks the fiber of community which makes neighbors. It is a problem which demands compassion, and not simply condemnation, for those who become the victims of narcotics and dangerous drugs. We must try to better understand the confusion and disillusion and despair that bring people, particularly young people, to the use of narcotics and dangerous drugs.

We are not without some understanding in this matter, however. And we are not without the will to deal with this matter. We have the moral resources to do the job. Now we need the authority and the funds to match our moral resources. I am confident that we will prevail in this struggle as we have in many others. But time is critical. Every day we lose compounds the tragedy which drugs inflict on individual Americans. The final issue is not whether we will conquer drug abuse, but how soon. Part of this answer lies with the Congress now and the speed with which it moves to support the struggle against drug abuse.

RICHARD NIXON The White House June 17, 1971

Note: The proposed drug abuse control legislation was S. 2097.

On the same day, the White House released a summary of highlights of Administration actions in the fields of drug abuse prevention and control and a fact sheet on the message.

Richard Nixon, Special Message to the Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/240245

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Essay on the Prevention and Control to Drug Addiction

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Essay on the Prevention and Control to Drug Addiction!

“Prevention is better than cure” is also true here. Tobacco, drugs/alcohol abuse are more during young age and during adolescence.

Thus remedial measures should be taken well in time. In this regard the parents and teachers have a special responsibility.

The following measures would be particularly useful for prevention and control of alcohol and drug abuse in adolescents.

1. Avoid undue Peer Pressure:

Every child has his/her own choice and personality, which should be kept in mind. So a child should not be pressed unduly to do beyond his/ her capacities, be it studies, sports etc.

2. Education and counselling:

Education and counselling are very important to face problems, stresses, disappointments and failure in life. These should be taken as part of life. One should utilize a child’s energy in some other activities like sports, music, reading, yoga and other extra curricular activities.

3. Seeking help from parents and peers:

Whenever, there is any problem, one should seek help and a guidance from parents and peers. Help should be taken from close and trusted friends. This would help young to share their feelings of anxiety and wrong doings.

4. Looking for Danger Signs:

If friends find someone using drugs or alcohol, they should bring this to the notice of parents of teacher so that appropriate measures would be taken to diagnose the illness and the causes. This would help in taking proper remedial steps or treatment.

5. Seeking Professional and Medical helps:

Highly qualified psychologists, psychia­trists and de-addiction and rehabilitation programmes can help individuals who are suffering from drug/alcohol abuse. If such help is provided to the affected persons, with sufficient efforts and will power, the patient could be completely cured and lead normal and healthy life.

Related Articles:

• Drug Addiction: Causes, Prevention and De-addiction
• 9 Major Effects of Drug Abuse – Explained!

Drug Adduction

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Why is Drug Education Important?

Why is drug education important? Understanding the impact of alcohol and other drugs is undoubtedly an invaluable strength. Knowing how drugs impact the body, the long and short-term effects of substance abuse, and the possible risk factors involved are all key in the prevention strategy. Research continues to provide substance abuse experts with more material to help educate community members on the dangers of illicit substances and drug misuse. Life-saving skills can develop from newer, evidence-based research and educational materials.

Drug education is not just for teachers or drug-free advocates and counselors. Everyone can benefit from the knowledge obtained from addiction researchers and specialists. It can help create safe and effective treatments as well as reduce the potential for increased substance abuse rates throughout a community.

Resources Provide Needed Education

No one questions the severity of the nationwide drug epidemic and its devastating impact on millions of lives. Alcohol and drugs undermine health and destroy futures, especially among the nation’s youth. To combat rising trends in addiction and addiction overdoses, experts are creating educational programs that use evidence-based training to help inform community members of peer pressure , mental health concerns , prescription drug abuse, prevention strategy, and much more.

The best solution is to reach young people with effective, fact-based drug education—before they start experimenting with drugs. Tweens, teens and young adults who know the facts about drugs are much less likely to start using them. -Drug Free World

The majority of local outreach programs seek to address community violence and drug use by properly educating residents, physicians, law enforcement, educators, and all pillars in the community about the lasting impact of addiction.

Prescription Medications: Changes in Policy

A great example of educational resources that evolved due to growing trends in substance abuse rates are those that surround the issue of prescription narcotic abuse.

Prior to 1990, physicians rarely prescribed opioids to patients other than those combating pain due to certain cancer types. By 1999, 86% of patients using opioids were using them for non-cancer pain. Communities, where opioids were readily available and prescribed liberally, were the first places to experience increased opioid abuse and resulting overdoses. In 2015, the National Survey on Drug Use and (NSDUH) found that 6.5 million Americans over the age of 12 used controlled prescription medicines non-medically, second only to marijuana and more than past-month users of cocaine, heroin, and hallucinogens combined.

The sharpest rise in drug-related deaths occurred in 2016, with over 20,000 deaths from fentanyl and related drugs. Shortly after, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued comprehensive guidelines for prescribing opioids for chronic pain outside of cancer treatment and end-of-life care.

By 2018, newer educational material revealed the truly devastating effects and widespread consequences of overprescribing opioids for general pain relief. As a result, more physicians took new approaches tor pain management. This is another reason why drug education is important.

Local Outreach Programs

Local outreach programs tend to focus on the local community needs, however there are larger scale programs aimed at informing the country about current drug related concerns. The United States Department of Health and Human Services is currently using a five step model to help address the opioid epidemic in the United States. The first step is to properly inform all Americans of the impact of the opioid crisis.

Drug education is not to be taken lightly and is a crucial factor in addressing deep seeded concerns that may perpetuate substance use disorders. Learn more about the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Health and Human Services is utilizing drug education to help address nationwide addiction.

What is Drug Education?

Drug education is a general term, but it incorporates several areas of alcohol and other drug recovery. It may refer to:

• Research & development
• Preventive treatment
• Early childhood or in-school education

The term drug education refers to the attempt to inform those living in a community where psychoactive drugs may be widely available and  or could have a significant effect on families, politics, and finances. It is used to help teach the effects drugs may have on physical health.

Drug education can be presented in many different formats including:

• Advertising
• Open Community Board Meetings
• Employee Assistance Programs
• Hospital and clinical training
• Wellness Coaching
• Research papers
• Infographics

Beyond providing help in substance abuse prevention, drug education is a large proponent of providing safe and healthy resources that promote healthy living. For example, it may raise awareness of community needs, such as a lack of available gyms, lack of proper community health facilities or addiction treatment options, and a lack of safe and healthy recreational activities. Drug education shows what resources may be missing in an affected community and can increase awareness and safety in the community.

For further examples of current drug education resources, visit Drug Policy Alliance here . They discuss the potential for harm reduction, parenting, advocacy, and stigma regarding community drug use.

Accessing Community Drug Education

Drug education is progressing in significant ways as newer research seeks to address disparities among various communities. Previously, an abstinence-only policy was widely believed to be the best method in addressing addiction. Unfortunately, programs like D.A.R.E didn’t produce the intended results . Experts think this is because abstinence education doesn’t give students the tools needed to make safe decisions or find help when substance abuse is already an issue.

More funding is helping to develop evidence-based systems for educating youth and community members in rural and urban environments. Some resources that provide  access to community drug education include:

• U.S. Department of Education
• National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) – Impaired Driving Division
• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
• National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Office of National Drug Control
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
• Office of Safe and Healthy Students

Is there a Need for Drug Education While Struggling with Addiction?

Yes. Participating in drug education while struggling with addiction is highly important. Several rehabilitation programs and relapse prevention programs use drug education to help inform clients about the severe impact drugs and alcohol have have on their personal and professional lives.

Drug education in rehab facilities develops awareness of possible triggers that may risk current progress toward sobriety. Furthermore, drug education can reduce the potential for relapse as patients can become aware of risky people, places, and situations. It is helpful to avoid such triggers or develop skills to overcome certain relapse triggers . Common triggers may include:

• Fear of Relapse

Becoming aware of these triggers and how they may personally impact a person suffering from alcohol or other drugs is critical. Triggers will always be present in all communities. Being able to identify triggers decreases the potential to accidentally place one’s self in a risky position that can jeopardize current progress.

AspenRidge: Educating Clients in Recovery

AspenRidge is a premier substance abuse and mental health treatment center. Our highly trained staff incorporates drug education in the form of skill building to safely and effectively aid in long-term recovery. AspenRidge offers various programs, all of which seek to address various levels of substance abuse and underlying mental health concerns that may prevent long-term recovery.

Please contact AspenRidge at 855-678-3144 . Our compassionate staff will help to verify insurance options and to clarify treatment options available at AspenRidge Recovery Centers.

About the Author

Karlie Roshong

Karlie is originally from Dayton, Ohio, and began her education in psychology at the University of Cincinnati. She participated in research studying ADHD in children, mindfulness and anxiety, and embodied cognition. After completing her bachelor’s degree, she continued her education at the University of Denver and earned a master’s in clinical mental health counseling with a side specialization in addiction. During grad school, she treated clients involved in the legal system as well as at a detox facility. After graduating, Karlie gained experience working in a residential program for eating disorders and a private practice before joining the AspenRidge team.

In her time here, Karlie trained as a clinical supervisor and an Acudetox therapist. She has a passion for working with clients to help them develop a more profound sense of identity to navigate depressive and anxious symptoms. She’s passionate about working with clients to work through trauma and improve mental stability. In her personal life, Karlie likes reading sci-fi and fantasy and going to Marvel movies. She enjoys playing board games and having home karaoke nights with her friends. Karlie says the best advice ever received is to not fall in love with potential. Fall in love with what is, then work to grow from there.

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DANNY SAN FILIPPO – Clinical Director

Originally from Boca Raton, Florida, Danny moved to Denver to study at the University of Colorado and earned a master’s degree in counseling. Danny spent the first nine years of his career working in youth residential treatment. After managing that program for six years, Danny moved to AspenRidge and now leads the clinical team. 

Danny specializes in brainspotting and reality therapy. He describes his area of expertise as treating substance use disorders, compulsive behaviors, and co-occurring mood disorders such as depression and anxiety that may travel with a substance use disorder. Danny has extensive experience in effectively treating incidental and complex trauma. He further describes his approach as science-driven, constantly reviewing the latest literature and theory. Danny ensures he has as many techniques as possible to help people improve their well-being and achieve their goals. Outside of work, he divides his time between family, basketball, and rock climbing. If Danny won the lottery, he’d start a tech company focusing on deep learning to support people in coping strategies. And, you know, keep working here.

Originally from Chino Hills, California, Chanel began her education at Gonzaga University, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Philosophy. She continued her education at the University of Denver and earned a master’s in clinical mental health counseling. Chanel completed internships at AspenRidge during her studies and eventually joined the team as a full-time primary clinician. 

Chanel describes herself as a humanistic therapist focused on building rapport and trust. She knows that when both of those are realized, they can accomplish each client’s unique goals together. She specializes in mood and personality disorders as they relate to addiction and is passionate about healing trauma by way of brainspotting and other trauma therapy methods. She has a goal to visit every state capitol and has been to 29 so far! If she won the lottery tomorrow, Chanel said she start a bookstore with a bakery inside for guests to enjoy their favorite books with an excellent coffee and dessert.

KARLIE ROSHONG – Clinical Manager

Karlie is originally from Dayton, Ohio, and began her education in psychology at the University of Cincinnati. She participated in research studying ADHD in children, mindfulness and anxiety, and embodied cognition. After completing her bachelor’s degree, she continued her education at the University of Denver and earned a master’s in clinical mental health counseling with a side specialization in addiction. During grad school, she treated clients involved in the legal system as well as at a detox facility. After graduating, Karlie gained experience working in a residential program for eating disorders and a private practice before joining the AspenRidge team. 

JILL GODING

Jill is a Colorado native who received a master’s in clinical psychology with an emphasis on women’s studies from the University of Houston. Jill has worked in several inpatient and outpatient centers, treating clients in all levels of care in both individual and group settings. 

She is a trauma-informed clinician who prioritizes the relationship between clinician and client. Addiction impacted her own family and influenced her compassionate and empathetic relationship with clients. She believes in healing the whole person in a safe and supportive environment. Jill enjoys spending time outdoors with her family, friends, and pets when she is not in the office. She spends most weekends in the mountains hiking, fishing, 4-wheeling, and camping. Jill is an avid photographer and particularly enjoys Colorado sunsets. If she won the lottery tomorrow, Jill would create a pet sanctuary where the community would unite. And, you know, keep working here.

COURTNEY SKILLMAN

Hailing from Boulder County, Courtney embarked on her academic journey by earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She furthered her education by completing a master’s of science in clinical mental health counseling from Capella University. Additionally, Courtney obtained certificates in Alcohol and Drug Studies and is certified in Branspotting, a clinical treatment technique aiding individuals in processing trauma.

Courtney’s professional experience in substance use treatment began in a holistic residential treatment center. Since then, she has worked across various settings including outpatient, inpatient, and community corrections programs. 

Describing her therapeutic approach as evidence-based, Courtney champions a humanistic or person-centered approach as the ideal foundation. She integrates her expertise in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and mindfulness-based practices to tailor interventions according to each client’s distinct needs.

Beyond her clinical practice at AspenRidge, Courtney finds solace in outdoor activities, sports, reading, and cherishing quality time with her family and beloved dog.

JUSTIN GREEN – Primary Clinician

Justin was born and raised in Fort Collins, Colorado, where he began his clinical education at Colorado State University.  He received his bachelor’s in health and exercise science with a concentration in sports medicine and eventually earned a master’s of psychology in addiction counseling. During his time as a therapist, Justin has worked in a residential addiction treatment facility, private practice, and outpatient settings. 

Justin’s goal as a clinician is to help clients rediscover their own sense of agency over their lives. He knows therapy is a sacred process, and treatment is rarely as simple as finding the solution to one’s problems. Justin meets clients where they are and aims to help people learn to cultivate self-compassion, presence, and curiosity toward their pain. When he is not working with clients at AspenRidge, Justin plays basketball and disc golf, noodles on the guitar, and spends time with his wife and family. Justin says if he invented a holiday, it would definitely involve cookies, ice cream, and all sorts of sweet things.

BRIONNA MOORE – Primary Clinician

Originally from Southern California and later the Hudson Valley area of New York, Brionna pursued her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the State University of New York at Oswego and completed her master’s in addiction counseling at Colorado State University.

Specializing in Compulsive Hoarding and Behavior Addictions, Brionna guides clients towards healthier relationships and boundaries. Additionally, she is trained in Brainspotting, offering a unique approach to trauma-informed care. Brionna’s therapeutic approach blends Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), empowering clients to challenge negative thinking patterns and manage intense emotions through mindfulness practices.

Outside of work, Brionna finds solace in arts and crafts, particularly crocheting and creative writing. She cherishes quiet moments with a good book, her two beloved cats, and the tranquility of nature’s walking trails.

KATHLEEN MORGAN

Kathleen was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, but spent half of her life in California. She holds a master’s in clinical psychology with an emphasis on marriage and family therapy. Additionally, she has a master’s in holistic wellness and is trained in EMDR therapy for both in-person and virtual settings. Kathleen has more than 15 years of experience treating people who have a substance use disorder. 

She typically works with people interested in taking a holistic approach to treating their addictions. This will include healthy eating, movement, meditation, mindfulness and spirituality. Outside of work, she’s a devotee of Krishna, and her friends call her Karunya Shakti, which means compassionate energy. She enjoys singing and dancing in kirtan and reading ancient Vedic literature like the Bhagavad Gita and the Srimad Bhagavatam. If she weren’t so damn good at her job, she says she would probably be an electrical engineer.

A Denver native and lifelong Colorado resident, Megan embarked on her academic journey at the University of Northern Colorado. There, she earned dual bachelor’s degrees before pursuing a master’s degree in psychology. During her academic years, she dedicated herself to assisting refugees fleeing war and violence in their home countries. 

Megan’s therapeutic approach is multifaceted, drawing from narrative, feminist, and existential therapy modalities. By employing these frameworks, Megan empowers her clients to confront their realities and comprehend the tangible impact of systemic factors on their lives.

Outside of her professional endeavors, Megan finds joy in the company of her partner and pets. She relishes spending time with friends, experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen, and exploring the great outdoors during milder weather.

CHRISTY SCHUETT

Christy Schuett, originally from Aberdeen, South Dakota, holds a master’s degree in counseling from Northern State University. Her journey began with crisis intervention for families, evolving into roles in community counseling, corrections, and residential facilities. Christy’s worked inthe field for more than 30 years.

Specializing in diverse mental health challenges, including depression, addiction, and trauma, Christy embraces a person-centered approach. She tailors interventions to individual needs, drawing from modalities like mindfulness, DBT, CBT, and EMDR.

Outside of work, Christy finds solace in nature, enjoying activities like gardening and mountain biking, alongside cherished moments with her family and dogs. If she weren’t excelling in her current role, Christy would likely champion environmental activism, advocating for nature’s preservation.

DARCIE O’CONNOR

Originally from Center Point, Iowa, Darcie pursued her academic journey at Walden University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. She then relocated to Alamosa, Colorado, where she obtained a master’s degree from Adams State University. 

Describing her approach as eclectic, Darcie seamlessly combines person-centered and evidence-based practices. Drawing from her background in local improv groups, she infuses sessions with laughter and humor, fostering a non-judgmental space for clients. Darcie believes in collaborating with her clients, tailoring interventions to suit their individual needs.

Her expertise encompasses group and individual work, with a particular focus on trauma. Darcie finds fulfillment in working with the LGBTQ+ population, leveraging her skills to support and empower. The best piece of advice she’s ever heard is to never take advice from someone who does not have what you are seeking. 

JORDAN ADSIT – Primary Clinician

Originally from Nashville, TN, Jordan moved to Colorado with her family at age five. She has worked in behavioral health since graduating with her bachelor’s degree in 2019. Jordan developed her clinical approach in various inpatient, hospital, outpatient, and private practice settings. Jordan continued her studies and earned a master’s in clinical and mental health counseling. Between post-graduate work and additional training courses, she honed her skills in treating first responders and military personnel from a trauma-informed perspective. In 2023, Jordan joined the clinical team at AspenRidge Recovery. Jordan describes her approach as eclectic but most beneficial and includes a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy, solution-focused therapy, emotion-focused therapy, and family-oriented practices. 

Outside AspenRidge, Jordan enjoys rock climbing, snowboarding, and playing volleyball and soccer. She believes she was probably a rodeo queen in another life and recharges by spending time with friends and family.

Essay on the Prevention and Control to Drug Addiction

Essay on the Prevention and Control to Drug Addiction!

“Prevention is better than cure” is also true here. Tobacco, drugs/alcohol abuse are more during young age and during adolescence.

Thus remedial measures should be taken well in time. In this regard the parents and teachers have a special responsibility.

The following measures would be particularly useful for prevention and control of alcohol and drug abuse in adolescents.

1. Avoid undue Peer Pressure:

Every child has his/her own choice and personality, which should be kept in mind. So a child should not be pressed unduly to do beyond his/ her capacities, be it studies, sports etc.

2. Education and counselling:

Education and counselling are very important to face problems, stresses, disappointments and failure in life. These should be taken as part of life. One should utilize a child’s energy in some other activities like sports, music, reading, yoga and other extra curricular activities.

3. Seeking help from parents and peers:

Whenever, there is any problem, one should seek help and a guidance from parents and peers. Help should be taken from close and trusted friends. This would help young to share their feelings of anxiety and wrong doings.

4. Looking for Danger Signs:

If friends find someone using drugs or alcohol, they should bring this to the notice of parents of teacher so that appropriate measures would be taken to diagnose the illness and the causes. This would help in taking proper remedial steps or treatment.

5. Seeking Professional and Medical helps:

Highly qualified psychologists, psychia­trists and de-addiction and rehabilitation programmes can help individuals who are suffering from drug/alcohol abuse. If such help is provided to the affected persons, with sufficient efforts and will power, the patient could be completely cured and lead normal and healthy life.

Related Articles:

• Drug Addiction: Causes, Prevention and De-addiction
• 9 Major Effects of Drug Abuse – Explained!
• Drug Resistance and Its Prevention | Animals |Pharmacology
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Short Essay on Drug Abuse and its Prevention

Drug abuse and its prevention

Introduction: Drug abuse has become a worldwide problem in modern times. Drug means a habit-forming substance which is taken pleasure or excitement and which induces sleep or produces insensibility. Youth and teenagers are more prone to become the victims of drug abuse.

Difficult to control: Thousands of men and billions of dollars are involved in drug traffic. That is why it is so difficult to keep it under control.

Prepared from harmful substances: Drug is smuggled into India from many countries. Drug is generally prepared from opium and/or other harmful substances and chemicals. This intoxicating evil is introduced in the market under various names.

Why do people take drugs? When a drug is taken for the first time, it stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain. It is for sake of pleasure that most users first get accustomed to it. They take drugs to forget pain, sorrow, insult,and to escape from reality.

Various forms: Drugs are taken in various forms. Some are taken through injection, some are smoked and some are chewed and swallowed. Drugs are sold in deserted houses, lonely places, hotels, parks, and street corners.

Problems of Drug abuse: We have heard of reports where young person stole their mother’s ornaments to buy drugs. Besides, ruining an addict morally, it also affects him physically. Drug abuse may negatively effect the kidneys and the brain. Harmful drugs attacks the nervous system. It causes loss of appetite, brings drowsiness all the time and saps one’s strength and stamina.

Preventive and Remedial Measures

There are certain preventive and remedial measures for dealing with the problem of drug abuse.

• The Government must use all the media to propagate against the habit of drug-taking.
• Voluntary organizations should pay more attention to instruct addicts how to give up the vice to bring them to the main stream of public life without shame or sorrow.
• Physicians should teach them how to prevent and avoid the evil and how to lead a normal healthy life.
• Parents should pay more care, attention and love to their sons and daughters.
• Reading of moral and religious books is also helpful to addicts.
• The police must act fearlessly to act against the people involved drug traffic.

Let us all decide today that we will never abuse any drug. We should all stand together to fight against this massive problem.

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‘Thread that needle’: Kamala Harris’ criminal justice policies in California angered progressives and police 

As the new Democratic standard bearer, Vice President Kamala Harris has described her contest with former President Donald Trump in blunt terms — tough prosecutor versus civil and criminal defendant .

“I took on perpetrators of all kinds, predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own game,” Harris said at a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday. “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”

But critics say that Harris’ record as a prosecutor, first as the district attorney in San Francisco and later as the California attorney general, reveals a political chameleon rather than a tough-on-crime top cop, according to interviews with current and former law enforcement leaders across the state, civil rights advocates and politicians.

In a statement, Harris campaign spokesperson James Singer said, “During her career in law enforcement, Kamala Harris was a pragmatic prosecutor who successfully took on predators, fraudsters, and cheaters like Donald Trump.”

Harris has written two books about her time as a prosecutor and attorney general. In her 2009 book, “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer,” published near the end of her tenure as DA, Harris described herself as a prosecutor who was “tough on crime by being Smart on Crime,” said she promoted programs to fix recidivism and made “improving my office’s felony conviction rates my number one priority.”

Five years later, after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, which vaulted the Black Lives Movement onto the national stage and made criminal justice reform a top issue, Harris embraced the calls for change.

In her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” published while she was senator, Harris described herself as a “progressive prosecutor.”

“I knew I was there for the victims. Both the victims of crimes committed and the victims of a broken criminal justice system,” Harris wrote. “For me, to be a progressive prosecutor is to understand — and act on — this dichotomy.”

Trump and his allies are now trying to emphasize the “progressive” part of Harris’ identity. On Tuesday, the former president attacked Harris as a “radical left person” and blamed current crime in the city on her tenure as district attorney.

“Really, what you should do is take a look at San Francisco now compared to before she became the district attorney, and you’ll see what she’ll do to our country,” Trump said.

'Tough' and 'compassionate' 

Harris, the daughter of an economist and a scientist , was born in Oakland, grew up in Berkeley and graduated from Howard University in 1986. She then attended the University of California law school in San Francisco, then known as Hastings, graduating in 1989, according to her congressional biography , and immediately began working as a prosecutor. She first worked at the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, prosecuting child sexual assault cases and later moved to the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, which provides legal services to the city and represents it in civil claims; she served as head of the office’s division on children and families.

Louise Renne, who as San Francisco city attorney at the time was Harris’ boss, said she hired Harris because she was known for being “tough on the law” as well as “compassionate and kind,” Renne told NBC News in an interview this week.

In 2003, after working five years in San Francisco, Harris was elected the city’s first Black, South Asian and female district attorney.

During her seven years in that office, Harris began formulating a reputation of being a careful prosecutor committed to holding individuals who commit serious crimes accountable and helping nonviolent offenders turn their lives around.

Lateefah Simon, who started the office’s first youth offender re-entry division under Harris, praised her approach.

“She’s the only district attorney that I would ever work for to this day, because I believed the ethics that she put into the office,” said Simon, who is now running for Congress in the Bay Area as a Democrat. “She tried to create an office that was fair and balanced.” 

Four months after Harris was sworn in, a gang member shot and killed police Officer Isaac Espinoza in April 2004. She declined to charge the gunman with a capital offense, sparing him from the death penalty. Harris’ decision rankled California’s political leadership.

During Espinoza’s funeral, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., slammed Harris’ decision. “This is not only the definition of tragedy, it’s the special circumstance called for by the death penalty law,” Feinstein said at the time. 

Throughout her tenure as district attorney, Harris focused on securing convictions. Felony conviction rates rose from 52% to 71%, and gun crime convictions rose to 92% in the first five years she was in office, according to her book.

“We are sending three times as many offenders to state prison [as] we were in 2001, three years before I took office,” Harris wrote in her 2009 book.

She also increased convictions for drug sellers, from 56% in 2003 to 74% in 2008, Harris noted. At the same time, Harris also implemented the Back on Track program, which provided nonviolent offenders — many of whom were low-level drug dealers — with the chance to receive a high school diploma, job training and access to available work, instead of prison sentences.

“The imperative today is both to go after the worst criminals and also to redirect the future of lower level offenders,” wrote Harris in her 2009 book.

Her relationship with progressives grew strained. She pushed for the prosecution of truancy cases — which resulted in the parents of children who were habitually absent from school being prosecuted and forced to pay fines of up $2,500 and potentially serving up to a year in jail. Some critics said the policy disproportionately affected Black families.

A Harris campaign aide said the policy was effective: "Truancy dropped by 33 percent because of the policy and it also helped people in the community — this wasn’t one or two days; this was kids missing 60 to 80 days out of a 180-day school year."

Harris also clashed with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors over a policy related to undocumented immigrants . In 1989, the board made San Francisco a “sanctuary city,” which meant that local police were generally not allowed to share any information with federal immigration agencies that they had obtained from interactions with undocumented people.

Harris, along with then- San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom , later supported a policy that would require law enforcement to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if an undocumented juvenile immigrant was arrested under suspicion of committing a felony.  

David Campos, who has served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors as well as the Police Commission, said he and other progressives have not always agreed with Harris, but supports her bid for the presidency.

“She will be able to bring forward an experience, that perspective, that points to results where she was able to thread that needle between being tough on crime and also being reform-minded when it comes to criminal justice,” said Campos, who is now the vice-chair of the California Democratic Party.

A Harris campaign aide said, "If you’re angering the far left and the far right, you’re probably doing something right."

Prison reform

Several years after Harris was elected state attorney general in 2010, California voters passed a ballot measure that enacted sweeping sentencing reforms across the state. In an effort to relieve overcrowding in the state's prison, the proposition reclassified a list of felonies as misdemeanors, including certain drug crimes and theft — including shoplifting of property valued at less than $950.

The attorney general’s office under Harris released a summary of the law , called Proposition 47, which predicted that prison and jail populations would decrease while funding for truancy reduction programs and mental health services would rise. It also predicted that the state criminal justice system would save hundreds of millions of dollars due to the changes, and local prosecutors and sheriffs would have reduced workloads.

As of last week, prison officials reported, there were 92,480 people locked up in California’s prison systems, down from a height of more than 156,000 inmates during the early 2010s before the law was passed. But as NBC News reported last year , California’s reforms created a prison-to-homelessness pipeline, as counties were overwhelmed with an influx of returning inmates.

Violent crime, meanwhile, has increased across the state. The state attorney general’s office reported that from 2014 to 2023, violent crime had risen by more than 30% — including jumps in rapes, aggravated assaults and murders.

Although Harris didn’t take a formal position on the measure, Republicans accused her of misrepresenting Proposition 47 to the public. Steve Cooley, who served as the Los Angeles County district attorney from 2000 to 2012, blamed the rise in crime on Harris and the referendum.

“The damage has been untold and, in a sense, irreparable,” said Cooley, who ran as a Republican against Harris for attorney general. “It was beyond a bait and switch. It was fraud by misrepresentation.”

Critics also blame a rise in retail theft in California on Proposition 47. They say the reforms enable serial shoplifters to cycle in and out of police custody with little accountability. Even if they are repeatedly arrested, they are only charged with misdemeanors as long as the goods are valued at less than $950.

Frustration over shoplifting is now driving voters to try to amend the law. In November, California residents will decide whether to amend Proposition 47 to allow people with two theft convictions to be charged with a felony after being caught stealing a third time. It would also permit judges to sentence repeat “hard drug” offenders to prison instead of jail.

Douglas Eckenrod, a former deputy director of parole for the California prison system, who is now running for sheriff as a Republican in Sedona, Arizona, said Harris was too lenient on criminals. 

“Kamala Harris is not a hard-liner [on crime],” Eckenrod said. “Prop 47 couldn’t happen without the AG’s office support. Her support of it was literally critical.”

In 2017, Harris left her post as California’s attorney general after being elected to the U.S. Senate.

Police reform

Harris’ relationship with both police officers and police reform activists has been fraught. 

When she ran for attorney general in 2010, the San Francisco police union president did not back her, citing her refusal to seek the death penalty in the killing of Officer Espinoza. “That is a relationship that is never going to be OK,” union boss Gary Delagnes told SF Weekly at the time.

Harris also attracted criticism from those on the left. Civil rights attorneys and police reform advocates lambasted her for failing to charge police officers who they said had used excessive force in deadly confrontations. 

John Burris, an Oakland-based civil rights attorney who has sued police departments and officers across the state, said he couldn’t recall a police violence case that Harris, as San Francisco district attorney and later as California attorney general, chose to prosecute. But he added, prosecutors during that era rarely challenged police officers.

“It’s no secret that prosecuting police in shooting cases is an uphill battle for the most part,” Burris said. “I thought that she appreciated those issues, even though I didn’t necessarily agree with the ultimate decision.”

Harris also rarely used a state law, enacted in 2001, that allows the attorney general to investigate problematic local law enforcement agencies for widespread abuses. In December 2016, weeks before she was sworn in as senator, Harris announced that her office would investigate the Kern County Sheriff’s Office and the Bakersfield Police Department over allegations of excessive force and serious misconduct.

A spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, defended her record and said in a statement to NBC News that Harris also opened an investigation into the Stockton School District and its school police department. The California Department of Justice later found that the Stockton school district had referred a disproportionate number of Black, Latino and disabled students to law enforcement.

The spokesperson also noted that Harris launched an open data initiative that releases the number of law enforcement officers killed or assaulted on the job, the number of people who die in custody, and the number of arrests and bookings. She also announced new requirements for reporting officer-involved shootings and use of force incidents. 

Despite complaints that she failed to hold police accountable for abusive behavior, Harris said in her 2019 memoir that she supported the mission of Black Lives Matter. She credited the protests for motivating her to make several policy changes. 

Harris wrote that she required officers in California to attend anti-bias training and ordered some state-level officers to start to wear body cameras.

“I was able to do it because the Black Lives Matter movement had created intense pressure,” Harris wrote. “By forcing these issues onto the national agenda, the movement created an environment on the outside that helped give me the space to get it done on the inside.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated where Harris grew up. She grew up in Berkeley, not Oakland (where she was born).

Alexandra Chaidez is an associate producer with the NBC News Investigative Unit

Simone Weichselbaum is a national investigative reporter for NBC News, focusing on local and federal law enforcement issues. She previously was a police reporter for The Marshall Project, the New York Daily News and the Philadelphia Daily News. She holds a graduate degree in criminology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Andrew Blankstein is an investigative reporter for NBC News. He covers the Western U.S., specializing in crime, courts and homeland security. 

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Nizhny Novgorod city, Russia

The capital city of Nizhegorodskaya oblast .

Nizhny Novgorod - Overview

Nizhny Novgorod (colloquially often just “Nizhny”; from 1932 to 1990 - Gorky) is a large city located in the center of European Russia, the administrative center of the Volga Federal District and Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.

It is an important economic, industrial, scientific, educational, and cultural center of Russia, the largest transport hub of the Volga Federal District. Nizhny Novgorod is one of the main centers of river tourism in Russia. The historic part of the city is rich in sights and is a popular tourist destination.

The population of Nizhny Novgorod is about 1,234,000 (2022), the area - 411 sq. km.

The phone code - +7 831, the postal codes - 603000-603257.

Nizhny Novgorod city flag

Nizhny novgorod city coat of arms.

Nizhny Novgorod city map, Russia

Nizhny novgorod city latest news and posts from our blog:.

7 January, 2022 / Nikolai Bugrov's Summer Dacha in Volodarsk .

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2 June, 2017 / The Most Beautiful House in Nizhny Novgorod .

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29 September, 2015 / Nizhny Novgorod - the view from above .

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History of Nizhny Novgorod

Foundation of nizhny novgorod.

During the military campaigns of the Russian princes against the Volga Bulgaria, the place where the Oka River flows into the Volga was used as a gathering point for the Murom and Suzdal troops. In 1220, Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich (the grandson of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, the founder of Moscow) conducted a successful campaign against the Bulgars. After it, he “decided to strengthen this important place for Rus” and founded a town at the mouth of the Oka.

It was named Novgorod, which literally means “new town”. Later, the adjective “nizhny” (“lower”) was added to the name of the town in the Russian annals. This was probably done in order to distinguish it from the town of Novgorod (present Veliky Novgorod) and other Novgorods that existed at that time.

The founding of Nizhny Novgorod was the beginning of an active expansion of Russian influence in the Mordovian lands. Two white-stone churches were built in the fortress, including the Cathedral of the Archangel (1227) - evidence of the special role that the town had in the system of lands of Vladimir-Suzdal Rus. However, the Mongol invasion stopped further development.

Information about Nizhny Novgorod of the 13th century is extremely scarce. But it is known that after the invasion it revived relatively quickly. Nizhny Novgorod is constantly mentioned in Russian chronicles as a major political and economic center of North-Eastern Rus and a spiritual center of Orthodoxy in the Volga region. The town was often the object of conflicts between Moscow and Tver.

In 1392, the Moscow prince Vasily I received a jarlig for the Nizhny Novgorod Principality and captured Nizhny Novgorod. The final annexation of Nizhny Novgorod to the possessions of Moscow took place in the late 1440s.

More Historical Facts…

Nizhny Novgorod in the 16th-18th centuries

Under Ivan III and Vasily III, the town played the role of a border post and was a gathering place for military campaigns against the Kazan Khanate. In 1508-1515, the stone kremlin was built. After the capture of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible, the border role of Nizhny Novgorod became insignificant. At the same time, Nizhny Novgorod became the center of trade between Russia and the East and a large shipbuilding center.

In September 1611, during the Time of Troubles, the Second People’s Militia was organized in Nizhny Novgorod to fight the Poles who were able to establish control over Moscow. The militia consisted of detachments of townspeople, peasants of the central and northern regions of the Tsardom of Russia. The leaders were the Nizhny Novgorod merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky (the monument to them is installed on Red Square in Moscow). In October 1612, the militia was able to completely liberate Moscow.

In the 17th century, a schism occurred in the Orthodox Church under Patriarch Nikon. It led to the formation of numerous settlements of Old Believers in the vicinity of Nizhny Novgorod. In 1695, during his Azov campaign, Peter I arrived in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1719, as a result of his administrative-territorial reforms, the town became the center of a separate Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. In 1722, setting off on the Persian campaign, Nizhny Novgorod was again visited by Peter I. Here he celebrated his 50th birthday.

In 1767, Nizhny Novgorod was visited by Empress Catherine II. During her stay in the town, she met the famous local mechanic and inventor Ivan Kulibin. After her visit, a new regular town plan was approved. The first town theater was built in 1798. Later, it became known as Nikolaevsky, in honor of Emperor Nicholas I.

Nizhny Novgorod in the 19th century

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, Nizhny Novgorod became a major scientific and cultural center of the Russian Empire. In 1811, the population of Nizhny Novgorod was about 14,400 people. In 1817, the Makaryev Fair, the largest fair of the Russian Empire, was moved to the village of Kunavino (one of the districts of today’s Nizhny Novgorod). Before that, it was organized every year near the Makaryevsky Monastery, which burned down a year earlier. From that time on, it began to be called the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. Thanks to it, the rapid economic development of the town and adjacent villages began.

After Emperor Nicholas I visited the town in 1834, the large-scale reconstruction of Nizhny Novgorod began. In 1847, a water supply system appeared in the town and the first fountain was built. Private buildings in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin were demolished and new administrative buildings appeared in their place. A lot of new buildings, streets, boulevards, and gardens were built.

In 1849, a large industrial enterprise was founded in the village of Sormovo (another district of today’s Nizhny Novgorod). Later, it became known as the Sormovo plant. It was producing river steamers, various railway cars, steam locomotives, and trams. Thanks to the plant, Sormovo soon turned into a large village of workers. In 1862, the construction of the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod railway was completed. In 1863, the population of the city was 41,500 people.

In 1896, the city hosted the All-Russian Trade and Industrial Exhibition. The radio receiver of the engineer A.S. Popov, the hyperboloid tower of the engineer V.G. Shukhov were demonstrated at the exhibition, as well as the first Russian car of the Frese and Yakovlev factories.

Nizhny Novgorod in the first half of the 20th century

In 1914, about 111,000 people lived in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1917, during the First World War, the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute was evacuated to this city, on the basis of which the Nizhny Novgorod Polytechnic Institute was created.

On October 7, 1932, Nizhny Novgorod was renamed Gorky due to the 40th anniversary of the literary and social activities of the writer Maxim Gorky. In 1933, the first permanent bridge across the Oka River was built. The railway bridge across the Volga was constructed too. Thanks to this, it became possible to go by rail through Gorky to the Urals and Siberia.

The 1930s were a period of rapid industrialization. In 1932, the largest industrial enterprise in the city was opened - the Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ), an important object of the Soviet defense industry. In the 1930s-1940s, the city was even referred to as “Russian Detroit”. By 1939, the population of Nizhny Novgorod increased to about 644,000 people.

Every fourth resident of the Gorky region (about 822 thousand people) fought on the fronts of the Second World War. Of these, more than 350 thousand people did not return from the battlefields - they were killed, went missing or died from wounds in hospitals.

In June 1943, three large raids of German bombers were carried out on Gorky. The main target of air strikes was the Gorky Automobile Plant, which as a result was almost completely destroyed. It was rebuilt only in the middle of 1944. Over 500,000 wounded were treated in dozens of hospitals during the war years.

The city was an important center for the production of weapons. During the Second World War, every second Soviet car, every third tank and every fourth artillery piece were produced at Gorky’s plants. In total, about 38 thousand tanks, self-propelled guns, armored vehicles, 43 thousand mortars, 16 thousand aircraft, 22 submarines, 109 thousand cars, more than 85 thousand radio stations, as well as 101 thousand artillery pieces and 1,165 Katyusha multiple rocket launchers were produced in Gorky.

Nizhny Novgorod after the Second World War

In 1946, the first GAZ-M-20 “Pobeda” passenger car and the GAZ-51 truck left the assembly line of the Gorky Automobile Plant. In 1949, the construction of the monumental Chkalov Stairs connecting the Upper Volga and Lower Volga embankments was completed in the historic center of Nizhny Novgorod. On August 4, 1959, the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On the closure of the city of Gorky for visiting by foreigners” was issued. In 1962, the population of Gorky exceeded 1 million people.

On January 18, 1970, a radiation accident occurred at the Krasnoe Sormovo plant. During the construction of a nuclear submarine, an unauthorized launch of the reactor took place. After working at prohibitive power for about 10-15 seconds, it partially collapsed. Hundreds of workers were exposed to the radioactive release. In total, over one thousand people took part in the liquidation of the consequences of the accident and were exposed to radiation.

In 1985, a subway was opened in Gorky. In 1980-1986, Andrei Sakharov, a world famous nuclear physicist, Nobel laureate, and activist, was in exile in Gorky to prevent his contacts with foreigners. In the early 1990s, the “closed city” status was lifted and the city became accessible to foreigners. On October 22, 1990, Gorky was renamed back to Nizhny Novgorod. In 1991, the population of the city reached its maximum - 1,445,000 people.

At the end of the 20th century, the information technology sphere began to actively develop in the city. In the 2000s, a transport problem arose because of the insufficient carrying capacity of the Nizhny Novgorod bridges connecting the lower part of the city and the upper one.

In February 2012, the Nizhny Novgorod Volga Aerial Tramway was opened. This 3661-meter-long gondola lift cable car connected Nizhny Novgorod with the town of Bor. Its daily passenger traffic is about 5,000 people. In 2013, the city electric train was launched - an alternative to the subway line from Sormovo to Moskovsky railway station.

Nizhny Novgorod hosted 6 matches of the FIFA World Cup 2018 . A new stadium was built, the old river port was demolished, a new park and embankments were created. Large-scale restoration of old streets and buildings took place, new museums were opened, hotels were built, and parks were reconstructed.

Streets of Nizhny Novgorod

One sunny summer day in Nizhniy Novgorod

Author: Denis Plekhanov

Apartment buildings in Nizhny Novgorod

Author: Eugene Ivanov

On the street in Nizhny Novgorod

Author: Sergey S. Kazenyuk

Nizhny Novgorod - Features

Nizhny Novgorod is located about 425 km east of Moscow, at the confluence of the two largest waterways of the European part of Russia - the Volga and Oka rivers. The city is divided by the Oka into two parts. The length of Nizhny Novgorod along the Oka is 20 km, along the Volga - about 30 km.

The climate in Nizhny Novgorod is moderately continental, with cold, long winters and warm, relatively short summers. The average temperature in January is minus 8.9 degrees Celsius, in July - plus 19.4 degrees Celsius.

A red deer is depicted on the coat of arms and flag of Nizhny Novgorod, which is a symbol of nobility, purity, life, wisdom, and justice. The City Day is celebrated on the 3rd Saturday in August.

In January 2019, Nizhny Novgorod was recognized as the best city in Russia in terms of quality of life. It took first place among Russian cities and 109th in the world in terms of quality of life. The rating was compiled by the site numbeo.com, which specializes in statistics on the cost of living and consumer prices in different countries of the world.

When compiling the rating, the purchasing power of the population, safety, health care, the cost of living, the ratio of real estate prices to the population’s income, traffic congestion, the level of environmental pollution, and climate were taken into account.

The main branches of the local industry are the production of cars and weapons, shipbuilding. Nizhny Novgorod is also one of the IT centers of Russia.

Nizhny Novgorod is a major transport hub. The city has a railway station, a river station, a cargo port, several berths for transshipment of goods. Strigino International Airport named after V.P. Chkalov offers regular flights to such cities as Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Samara, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and a number of others.

Public transport in Nizhny Novgorod plays a very important role in ensuring the life of the city. At the same time, its work is hampered by the distribution of its population on the city’s territory, large daily migrations, a very high concentration of passenger traffic on the bridges across the Oka River, and the lack of an all-encompassing system of high-speed transport. There are municipal buses, fixed-route minibuses, trams, trolleybuses, the city train, and subway.

The tourist potential of Nizhny Novgorod is quite high. According to UNESCO, it is one of the most valuable historical cities in the world. In total, there are more than 600 unique historical, architectural and cultural monuments in Nizhny Novgorod, a variety of museums. The best time to visit Nizhny Novgorod is summer.

One of the alternative ways to visit Nizhny Novgorod is to take a river cruise along the Volga River. Travelers will find exciting excursions and meals in traditional Russian taverns. It will also be interesting to come during one of the many fairs or ethnographic festivals that are held in the city.

Main Attractions of Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin (1508-1515) - a fortress in the historic center of Nizhny Novgorod and its oldest part, the main architectural complex of the city located on the right high bank, at the confluence of the Volga and Oka rivers. To date, all 13 towers of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin have been preserved or have been restored. The thickness of the wall at the base reaches 5 meters. There are exhibitions in the towers of the fortress; a section of the wall is open for tourists to visit.

In the past, there were several churches on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. Today, only the Archangel Michael Cathedral has survived, built no later than the middle of the 16th century and rebuilt in 1628-1631 - the oldest surviving building in the kremlin. There is the grave of Kuzma Minin inside it.

An excellent view of the Volga River and Strelka (the confluence of the Oka and Volga) opens from the walls of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. Here you can also see a collection of military equipment from the Second World War.

Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum - one of the oldest museums in Russia, the largest museum of fine arts in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The Governor’s Palace on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin houses a permanent exhibition of Russian art and a collection of artistic silver.

In the House of the Merchant and Benefactor D.V. Sirotkin (Verkhnevolzhskaya Embankment, 3), an exposition of Western European art is presented and, separately, the painting by K.E. Makovsky “The appeal of Kuzma Minin to the citizens of Nizhny Novgorod” - one of the largest paintings on a historical theme in Russia (698x594 cm).

Chkalov Stairs (1943-1949) - a monumental staircase in the form of a figure eight in the historic center of Nizhny Novgorod. Connecting the Upper Volga (Verkhnevolzhskaya) and Lower Volga (Nizhnevolzhskaya) embankments, it is one of the longest stairs in Russia. It starts from the observation deck at the monument to Valery Chkalov (the famous Soviet pilot who made the first non-stop flight from the USSR to the USA via the North Pole), next to the St. George Tower of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.

Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street - the main street of Nizhny Novgorod built up with noble mansions of the past centuries. A large part of Bolshaya Pokrovskaya is reserved for the pedestrian zone and is analogous to the pedestrian Arbat Street in Moscow. There are a lot of historic houses, cafes, souvenir shops, boutiques, monuments, and sculptures here. The length of the street is over 2 km.

The building of the State Bank (Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, 26), resembling a medieval palace, is an outstanding architectural monument built in the Russian Revival style in 1911-1913. In the Museum of Old Equipment and Tools (Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, 43), you can see unique exhibits, hear their history, and even touch them.

Fedorovsky Embankment - one of the most beautiful embankments in Nizhny Novgorod and the best observation deck in the city. Everything is perfectly visible from this embankment: the old part of the city, the river station with a park, the Kanavinsky bridge - one of the oldest in the city, and, of course, the opposite bank of the Oka River with the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the confluence of the Oka and Volga. People also come here to watch the sunset.

Nizhny Novgorod Volga Aerial Tramway . This cable car, 3661 meters long, connects the high right bank of the Volga River, where the historic part of Nizhny Novgorod is located, with the town of Bor. It has the largest unsupported span over the water surface in Europe - 861 meters.

A one way trip during which you can admire the picturesque views of Nizhny Novgorod and the Volga River takes 15 minutes. It is better to use it in good sunny weather, because in windy weather, the movement of the cabins can be stopped. Sennaya Square on Kazanskaya Embankment.

Nizhny Novgorod State Museum of History and Architecture (1875-1877). Also known as the Mansion of S.M. Rukavishnikov, it is an architectural ensemble built in the eclectic style in the historic center of Nizhny Novgorod, one of the most important and famous architectural monuments of this city. Guided tours are held in the premises, allowing you to learn about the life of the former owners of the mansion, as well as look at the historical expositions of different years. Verkhnevolzhskaya Embankment, 7.

Main Palace of Nizhny Novgorod Fair - a luxurious building constructed in the forms of Old Russian architecture of the 17th century. Today, exhibitions of various formats are held here, as well as the multimedia exposition “Russia - my history” dedicated mainly to the history of Nizhny Novgorod starting from the Finno-Ugric peoples. Sovnarkomovskaya Street, 13.

Museum of the History of the Gorky Automobile Plant . The museum houses expositions telling about the history and development of the Gorky Automobile Plant. In total, there are over 40,000 exhibits. Here you can see a collection of Soviet vintage cars, which includes “Chaika”, “Volga”, the truck “GAZ-51”, and a lot of others. Lenina Avenue, 95.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (1868-1881) - the most noticeable sight of the lower part of Nizhny Novgorod, which can be seen from all observation decks of the upper city. The church, 87 meters high, was built on the site of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair at the expense of merchants, who wanted to perpetuate the visit of Emperor Alexander II. Strelka Street, 3a.

Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1696-1719) - one of the best examples of the Stroganov Baroque, an architectural monument of federal significance. From a distance, this colorful building looks like a sugar gingerbread with “candy” domes and decorated with stone flowers, pears and apples. Rozhdestvenskaya Street, 34.

Pechersky Ascension Monastery - one of the most interesting places in Nizhny Novgorod, where you can feel the spirit of the city. Most of the monastery buildings date back to the first half of the 17th century. A lot of beautiful photographs can be taken here. Privolzhskaya Sloboda Street, 108.

Limpopo Zoo - the first private zoo in Russia. More than 270 species of animals live here, 25 of which are listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation. It is located on the territory of the Sormovsky Park on an area of 7.1 hectares. Yaroshenko Street, 7b.

Architectural and Ethnographic Museum-Reserve “Shcholokovskiy Khutor” . The exposition of this museum is represented by 16 objects of rural architecture: residential houses, barns, mills and churches of the 17th-19th centuries brought from the northern districts of the Nizhny Novgorod region. The facades of the houses are decorated with traditional relief carvings. In the premises of the houses, interiors with authentic items of peasant life have been restored. Gorbatovskaya Street, 41.

Nizhny Novgorod city of Russia photos

Pictures of nizhny novgorod.

Chkalov Stairs and the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin

Author: Sergey Bulanov

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Nizhny Novgorod

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Top 10 Things To Do And See In Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

Located about 400km east of Moscow , Nizhny Novgorod is one of the most important centers of cultural, economic, and political activity in European Russia . Widely considered, after St Petersburg and Moscow, to be Russia’s ‘third city’, Nizhny is fast becoming a hot-spot for Russian and global tourists alike, attracted by the city’s up-and-coming reputation and stunning landscape.

The Kremlin

Jutting out from the cliffs that overlook the meeting point of the great Volga and Oka rivers, Nizhny Novgorod ‘s ancient Kremlin boasts of some of the best views in the city. Designed by an Italian architect, the 13 magnificent towers and the 12 meter high walls of Nizhny’s Kremlin date back to 1500. On this very spot in 1612, heroes of Russian history Kuzma Minin and Count Dmitry Pozharsky defeated the invading Polish army in extraordinary circumstances. This moment has become legend in Russian history and a statue in honor of these two lies at the foot of St Basil’s in Moscow. The Kremlin is the historic center of the city where you will find an art museum and the lovely Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, as well as a striking monument to those that fought in the Second World War and its flame eternally flickering on in their memory.

Ride on the cable car

Completed in 2012, taking a ride on Nizhny Novgorod’s cablecar has fast become a favorite activity of tourists. The trip offers unparalleled opportunities to view the city’s gorgeous natural landscape from this bird’s eye position. The 3660m long gondola lift connects Nizhny to the town of Bor and stretches across the Volga River for 900 panoramic meters. The gondola acts as both a convenient means of transportation and a fantastic sight-seeing expedition – come at sunset for a golden-bathed view of the river and surrounding landscape.

The house-museum of Maxim Gorky

During the Soviet era, Nizhny Novgorod, birthplace of celebrated Russian writer Maxim Gorky , was renamed ‘Gorky’ in honor of this national hero. This home has been preserved in a state as accurate as possible to how it was left by Gorky and is so successful in this that it would seem as though the writer still lived there. The museum ‘s historic interiors and authentic furnishings will transport you back to the 1900s and the creative world of this icon of Russian literature. Come and make the most of this unique experience to delve into the childhood world of this Russian father of social realism. Museum booklets and guided tours are available in English.

Nizhegorodskaya Yarmarka

A yarmarka is something akin to a fair, and this historic former market place was restored in 1991, the site now playing home to a superb modern exhibition center. The city’s yarmarka plays host to international events, fairs, and conventions. In 2011, for the 20 year anniversary of the fair’s refounding, a vast array of exhibitions were organized, attended by thousands including members of the British royal family, Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev , and Margaret Thatcher . The fair is not only a buzzing center of business and culture, it is also one of the city’s most impressive sights.

The Nizhegorodsky State Art Museum

Located inside Nizhny Novgorod’s ancient Kremlin, the building that houses this art gallery was once the home of the governor of the city. The exhibits are wide-ranging and include everything from 14th century religious icons, to work by 20th century contemporary Russian masters. Particularly dazzling is the collection by Russian painter Nicholas Roerich. There is also a large arts and crafts collection which demonstrates the exquisite handiwork of Russian artisans throughout history.

Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street

The chkalov staircase.

An idyllic spot from which to watch the sun’s rays set over the city, this monumental creation was constructed by the Soviet government and is unique to the city of Nizhny Novgorod. The staircase derives its name from pilot Valery Chkalov who, in 1937, became the first man to fly from Moscow to Vancouver through the North Pole. A monument to Chkalov stands at the top of the stairs. The construction of the staircase cost almost 8 million rubles – an immense sum at the time. Over 1,500 stairs connect the city center with the river embankment – making Chkalov’s landmark the longest flight of stairs along the Volga. Nowadays the staircase is a favorite meeting place and relaxation spot for locals.

The Rukavishnikov Estate Museum

The Rukavishnikovs were a family of immensely wealthy merchants originating from the region around Nizhny Novgorod. This superbly restored palace , their former home, has been transformed into a museum of Russian history and gives a realistic snap-shot of life for the wealthy under tsarist rule. The ornate 19th century interiors and exquisite facade are sure to dazzle with their beauty while the lush green of the surrounding natural landscape provides a tranquil getaway from the city center. Lavish furnishings, priceless antiques, and glistening gold will transport you back in time to a world of balls, carriages, banquets, and tsars. Join the world of Russian noble ladies and gentlemen for a day in this stunning palace.

The Sakharov Museum

Nizhny Novgorod’s Sakharov Museum is dedicated to dissident Russian scientist Andrei Sakharov . The nuclear physicist and human rights activist was exiled for six years to the very flat in which the museum is now housed. Sakharov’s support for civil reform and improved human rights in the Soviet Union earned him harsh persecution from the Russian government, but also, in 1975, a Nobel Peace Prize . Sakharov was incarcerated here until 1986 when a KGB officer arrived to install a phone in the flat. Just after the phone was installed it began to ring: the caller was Mikhail Gorbachev, ringing Sakharov to inform him of his release. This phone is now one of the museum’s most treasured artifacts.

The National Centre of Contemporary Art

Inside the walls of Nizhny’s Kremlin can also be found one of the best modern art galleries in Russia. Linked to galleries in both St Petersburg and Moscow, this top-ranking exhibition center houses regularly changing displays of both Russian and international art as well as interactive exhibits and a media library. Progress is also on-going of adding a concert hall, extending the exhibition areas, and creating a restaurant. These additions aim to make art contemporary, not simply a detached, unrelatable concept, but bring it closer to the Russian people.

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