This article reports on an evaluation of the long-term efficacy of a school-based approach to drug-abuse prevention.
A randomized trial involved 56 public schools that received the prevention program with annual provider training workshops and ongoing consultation, the prevention program with videotaped training and no consultation, or "treatment as usual" (controls). Follow-up data were collected 6 years after baseline using school, telephone, and mailed surveys. A total of 3,597 predominantly white, 12th-grade students represented 60.41 percent of the initial seventh-grade sample. The intervention consisted of 15 classes in seventh grade, 10 booster sessions in eighth grade, and five booster sessions in ninth grade, and taught general "life skills" and skills for resisting social influences to use drugs. Six tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use self-report scales were recoded to create nine dichotomous drug- use outcome variables and eight polydrug-use variables. Significant reductions in both drug and polydrug use were found for the two groups that received the prevention program relative to controls. The strongest effects were produced for individuals who received a reasonably complete version of the intervention; there were up to 44 percent fewer drug users and 66 percent fewer polydrug (tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana) users. The findings suggest that drug abuse prevention programs conducted during junior high school can produce meaningful and durable reductions in tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use if they teach a combination of social-resistance skills and general life skills, are properly implemented, and include at least 2 years of booster sessions. 5 tables and 40 references