Youth are particularly vulnerable to adverse outcomes from substance use, and there is limited evaluated drug education targeting youth in Canada or the United States of America (US). This scoping review identified and synthesized existing literature on evaluated harm reduction substance use education programs for school-aged youth in Canada and…

Reducing youth cannabis use in Canada is a public health priority with schools of interest as a potential modifier of behavior and as a venue for prevention programming. This work aimed to provide a basis for future policy and programming by evaluating pre-legalization cannabis use change patterns in schools and the impact of school…

Bullying and mental health problems are pressing concerns for adolescents. Given their burden, we need to find efficacious ways to prevent these experiences. However, existing prevention programs tend to be single-issue and may not focus on the universal capacities required to reduce these problems among youth. To this end, we evaluated the…

This paper presents the rationale and content of PASS, a Danish school-based prevention program targeting cannabis-culture-related beliefs among high school students (i.e. typically 15-19 years). The objective of the program is to prevent or delay initiation of cannabis use and limit use among students who already initiated. PASS is a combined…

Background: Negative attitudes towards substance use and Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) are among the commonly cited barriers to screening and treating these disorders by physicians. These negative attitudes have also been reported in medical students. The aim of this study was to examine attitudes of medical students in Israel towards nicotine,…

Background: Participation in extracurricular activities can have positive effects on youth, with greater participation associated with higher academic as well as better socioemotional and behavioral outcomes. Little research has examined differential effects of in-school and out-of-school activities. Methods: This study examines in-school and…

School-based substance use prevention programs are a common method to approaching drug use in youths. Project SOS is a single-session drug prevention program developed by police officers and delivered by elite junior hockey players to students in grades 6 and 7. The current study evaluates the effects of Project SOS at achieving its objectives of…

The EU-Dap study aimed to develop and evaluate a school-based curriculum for the prevention of substance use among young people. The school curriculum, "Unplugged," is based on social influence approach and addresses social and personal skills, knowledge, and normative beliefs. It consists of 12 one-hour interactive sessions delivered by…

The problem of substance use among older youths is often disregarded in prevention research. The prevailing perception has been that prevention programming is developmentally inappropriate for those who are actively experimenting with substances. This project examines the differential effectiveness of youth-driven adaptations of the evidence-based…

Aim: To test whether the school-based Olweus prevention programme against bullying may have lasting effects on substance use, a hypothesis based on the characteristics of bullies having misconduct behaviour associated with substance use. Methods: The Olweus programme was introduced from grades 7 through 9 in four schools and monitored up to grade…

This study examined the impact of a school-based preventive intervention on cannabis use in adolescence, using a cluster-randomized trial of a multilevel intervention aimed at improving social relationships within schools by promoting change in school environment. Four waves of data were collected at baseline (1997, Year 8: mean age 13 years) and…

Evaluated impact of revised preventive interdisciplinary curricular program "Hashish and Marijuana" on attitudes and intentions toward hashish use among Israeli high school students (N=153). Findings suggest program's potential for effecting desired attitude change within target populations. Program will be officially disseminated to…

Objective: To study drug-related beliefs among adolescents, and specifically their propensity to distinguish "soft drugs" from "hard drugs"; to investigate factors associated with such a propensity as well as its relationship with cannabis use. Design & setting: A cross-sectional self-administered survey conducted among a random sample of 5,812…

The first National Drug Control Strategy set ambitious two and five-year performance based goals: (1) to lower the rate of drug use by 10 percent over 2 years among both youth and adults; and (2) to lower the rate by 25 percent over 5 years. The chapters in this updated version are keyed to the strategies three priorities: (1) Stopping Use Before…