Beyond 'just say no': a review of drug prevention programming

Numerous drug prevention programs and strategies have been researched, implemented and evaluated over the last few decades. The results from various evaluation efforts have yielded a variety of outcomes with no clear overall prevention strategy success. This project will review drug prevention strategies including supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction, with school-based prevention programs being the main focus. Success or effectiveness can be defined statistically or practically, therefore, data collection and research methods are analyzed to display the complexity and ambiguity of evaluation results. In addition, a closer look at what is meant by program effectiveness and whether it is an accurate gauge of success for these programs will also be provided. Although the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program is one of the most scrutinized and evaluated programs, a look beyond DARE and a ‘just say no’ philosophy is required.