EMCDDA Insights: Prevention of Substance Abuse
Submitted by Ally
- 15 August 2017
Prevention of Substance Abuse by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) is a report that draws on evidence-based research to assess substance use prevention interventions, in terms of their ability to effectively delay, reduce or prevent the use of alcohol, tobacco and illegal substances among children and young people.
It provides the following conclusions and recommendations for best practice:
- Comprehensive measures that combine training for parents, children and family units may be effective for preventing alcohol abuse.
- Interactive programmes that develop social-influence or life-skills models in a school setting may be effective for combating the use of a range of substances, both legal and illegal.
- It may be wise to avoid using one-off information sessions or isolated emotional-education initiatives/other non-interactive measure in school settings as a way to tackle substance use.
- Media campaigns combined with other preventative measures may be effective for reducing levels of tobacco usage.
- Using legislative measures to influence the price of alcohol and tobacco products may be effective for reducing levels of consumption.
