Pubdate: Mon, 21 Mar 2016
Source: Grand Forks Herald (ND)
Copyright: 2016 Grand Forks Herald
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/PmdVQo7l
Website: http://www.grandforksherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/513
Author: Tom Dennis, for the Herald

YES, IT'S POSSIBLE TO PREVENT DRUG ABUSE

Listen.

Do you hear it?

It's the sound of the system working-the system, that is, to prevent 
more young people from using illegal drugs.

Granted, the sound is not the satisfying purr of a smooth-running 
engine. Instead, it creaks and it clanks, and now and then it 
sputters to a stop.

But then it rumbles up-and make no mistake, it's continuing to 
advance. And that's vital to remember after reading stories such as 
Sunday's "We let them down"-a story that itself is a key sign of the 
drug-prevention system at work.

"We let them down" recapped the deaths, arrests and prosecutions that 
resulted from an appearance of fentanyl citrate in Grand Forks nearly 
two years ago.

It's easy to feel cynical after reading such a story, especially when 
it concludes that, "After indictments, sentencings and an award, 
fentanyl hasn't disappeared from Grand Forks."

After all, if the latter statement is true, then what's the point? 
Hasn't drug abuse been around for millennia? And aren't some number 
of young people bound to be abusers, no matter what adults say?

But in fact, the answers to those questions are more reassuring than 
readers might think. For example, "use of most (illegal) substances 
in 2015 continued their flat or downward trends seen in recent years 
- - many dropping to the lowest levels in the history of the survey," 
wrote Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 
on the institute's website as recently as December.

"This is true of both alcohol and cigarette use, for example. Fewer 
12th-graders than ever (17.2 percent) reported binge drinking, and 
fewer than ever (37.7 percent) reported being drunk in the past year. 
. Non-medical use of prescription pain relievers was down 
significantly from five years ago, and heroin use was at its lowest 
levels in the history of the survey - a bright spot in the current 
opioid crisis that continues to strongly affect other age groups."

As Volkow adds, "we cannot become complacent." In particular, 
marijuana use among teens remains high: "Six percent of high-school 
seniors use marijuana daily or almost daily."

But that's just the kind of information that educators-including 
parents-need to do their work. And that's where stories such as "We 
let them down" come in. Because by spreading information about drug 
abuse in a community, such stories let people know what's happening, 
thus empowering them to better respond.

As it turns out, this kind of knowledge is a feature that sets 
effective drug-abuse prevention apart. The National Institute on Drug 
Abuse lists 16 best-practice, proven-effected principles of drug 
prevention. Principle 3 is "prevention programs should address the 
type of drug abuse problem in the local community," and Principle 4 
says "prevention programs should be tailored to address risks 
specific to population or audience characteristics, such as age, 
gender and ethnicity."

In other words, prevention efforts should adapt to circumstances and 
changing times.

Prevention won't ever drop the number of drug abusers to zero. But it 
can stem a rise in abuse and bump the trend into a downward slide.

So while we may have "let them down" in the past, as Sunday's 
headline suggests, we also can learn from our mistakes. And in fact, 
that's happening, as the story made clear.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom