What is Prevention? We define prevention as an ongoing of promotion the individual's, the family's and the community's full personal growth and potential in order to reduce the likelihood of problems related to alcohol and/or drug abuse.

Prevention efforts are effective only in the degree to which they address and involve all aspects of the emotional, interpersonal and social milieus in which underage or excessive drinking or drug abuse occurs.

Alcohol consumption and drug abuse are pervasive in society; any effort to prevent it must operate on an equally comprehensive basis.

Prevention activities may take a two-pronged approach: (1) a deliberate and constructive process designed to promote growth of individuals and communities toward full human potential, (2) the counteraction of harmful circumstances such as health and safety hazards, family stress, job pressures, isolation, violence, economic hardship and inadequate housing, medical services, or child care.

Every segment of the community has a special role to play in prevention.

Parents and schools are particularly important.

Another Perspective.

A key question is, "What, exactly, do we mean by prevention?'' Within the alcohol and drug field, there are two major schools of though regarding prevention, and these lead to two different categories of activities.

The first group of activities may be called "educationally oriented'' prevention strategies. The second, newer set of activities is referred to as "environmentally focused'' or "public policy oriented'' prevention.

Educationally oriented prevention is what most people mean when they talk about "prevention''. This refers to activities such as classroom curricula to educate school children about the effects of alcohol and other drugs and media campaigns to teach the public the early warning signs of alcoholism and other addictions. This category of prevention activities is based on these assumption which have not proven valid: "People who know better will do better''.

"Alcohol problems are individual problems and can best be prevented by teaching individuals and families better coping mechanisms.'' "Alcoholics drink to escape or because they can not cope well.'' "We should provide assertiveness training, values clarification, communications and "refusal skills'' training to everyone in our society, but especially youth. These techniques, broadly applied, will prevent not only alcohol problems, but also drug addiction and many mental health problems.'' A newer, more creative set of ideas regarding prevention focuses on altering the environment in which these problems occur. This approach, as applied to alcohol problems, is both constructed upon and necessitated by the face that alcohol (the drug ethanol) is legal and widely available.

Advocates of this approach emphasise two important ideas. First, we must deal with a broad range of alcohol-related problems, not just "alcoholism''.

Alcohol is involved in much violent crime and household injuries, for example, but not all the people involved are "alcoholics''.

A second concept important to this approach is that the environments or settings in which consumption of alcohol occurs are an important piece of the puzzle drinking, in and of itself, may not necessarily be a problem. Drinking just before driving a car on the freeway is a problem.

We can create environments which reduce the risks associated with alcohol consumption through legislation. Private businesses can implement polices to do the same thing.

Thus, laws, which curtail the sale of alcohol to minors, reduce the risk to teenage traffic crashes. Banning sales of alcohol during the last segment of a professional sporting event reduces the likelihood that spectators will drive away form the stadium under the influence of alcohol, thus reducing the risk of drunk driving traffic accidents.

By banning alcohol consumption on work sites during the lunch hour, a construction company can reduce the injury rate and increase productivity.

These are all examples of policies which focus on altering the environment.

They cost little or nothing to implement.

DRUGS DGS