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Preventing drug use among youth works

Drug use prevention programmes are effective when they respond to the needs of a community, involve all the relevant sectors and are based on scientific evidence; effective programmes should also incorporate strong monitoring and evaluation components. Such programmes are also cost effective. It has been shown that, for every dollar spent, good programmes for the prevention of drug use among youth can save up to 10 dollars!

UNODC has been working for many years to identify good practices with the help of youth and community-based organizations through two major projects, the Global Youth Network against Drug Abuse and the Global Initiative on Primary Prevention of Substance Abuse. With the help of other experts (academics, practitioners and representatives of U. N. agencies), we have identified what works and what does not work in different prevention settings.

Find out more below:

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Families:

Evidence-based family skills training programmes have been found to be the most effective way to prevent substance use among children and adolescents. These programmes target the whole family and offer skills-building for parents on monitoring and supervision of children's activities, communication and setting age appropriate limits. Read more.

Schools:

Schools have been an important setting for UNODC to reach many children and adolescents with prevention activities. Evidence-based drug education based on life skills that offer personal, social, resistance and communication skills, as well as information about the short-term effects of drugs through a series of session offered by trained teachers. Read more.

Workplace:

UNODC has many years of experience in working with employers and employees together to develop and implement policies against substance abuse in the workplace. Such policies are designed to promote the health of employees by preventing substance abuse and assisting those with a drug dependence problem. Read more.

Monitoring and Evaluation:

For practitioners who want to improve the monitoring and evaluation of their programmes for the prevention of substance and drug abuse, we provide some useful guidelines and training materials.  Read more.