The recent report on drug use among school students gave some reason for cheer, since the survey showed that its prevalence is lower than it was the last time a survey was done in 2007.But the fact that more than half the students have drunk alcohol at some time and one in five has used cannabis remains worrying. So is the use of inhalants, especially among younger students. Similarly, 19 percent continue to use alcohol regularly while around eight percent use cannabis regularly. These numbers remain too high since the level of use may well rise once the students leave school. The fact that many students say it is easy to get marijuana is also worrying; this demonstrates the prevalence and acceptance of drugs in many parts of the community.The survey also establishes that there is a correlation between poor educational attainment and difficult home lives and drug use. Conversely, there is a correlation between high levels of extra-curricular activities and lack of drug use.So a holistic approach to drug abuse prevention, as opposed to a “just say no” or “this is your brain on drugs” approach, is needed to discourage drug use. Improving educational attainment, making more extra-curricular activities available to young people and encouraging them to participate and helping families to function better will reduce drug abuse, along with reducing a host of other social problems, including crime. The great challenge lies in young people’s belief that they are invincible; that they can “experiment” without becoming addicted and that they can stop when they want to.Still, it is interesting to note that cigarette use is much lower than marijuana or alcohol abuse. The campaign to show that tobacco use is a public health risk seems to have worked, at least to some extent. The ban on smoking in most public areas has made smoking socially unacceptable, without being illegal, and this may have affected young people. So it’s ironic that they do not appear to see marijuana as severe a health risk as tobacco. While 90 percent see smoking cigarettes as very harmful, 81 percent say the same for frequent marijuana use and 76 percent say the same for “smoking marijuana sometimes”.So it may be that the same kind of public health methods that have gone a long way to making smoking unacceptable could do the same for marijuana. Nonetheless, it is clear that a public health campaign depending heavily on advertising and education alone cannot be the whole answer; if not, the decades of effort would have shown better results. Instead, as the survey suggests, students who are seen as being at risk need special attention while interventions are called for those who are identified as regular users.The report notes that these kinds of approaches have had mixed results elsewhere, and it also finds that programmes adopted from elsewhere tend to be less successful when not under the direction of their originators. Bermuda is traditionally leery of foreign programmes, both because of our own perceived uniqueness and because we have seen far too many foreign experts traipse in, collect their fees and traipse out, having accomplished very little. One exception to that rule was Dr David Archibald, whose landmark report on drugs in Bermuda remains highly relevant today.But that does not mean that addressing this problem can be delayed while further study is carried out, which is one of the more depressing recommendations of this report. Instead, because the problem of drug abuse is inextricably linked with problems like broken families, poor educational achievement and poverty, fixing those problems, along with increased public health awareness and interventions, will help to fix the drug problem as well. And there are organisations that can assist in this, including the Family Centre, the Coalition for the Protection of Children, the Salvation Army, Sandys 360 and many more. They see these problems firsthand every day. With coordination and support, they can play a key role in resolving this problem.