Does drug education work?

Recent research indicates that certain drug education programmes do stop or delay the onset of drug use under optimum conditions. Social inoculation p rogrammes have generally enjoyed the greatest degree of success, but the be haviour changes have been confined to a small number of students; have not been uniform across all drugs and have diminished over time. Research on th e cost effectiveness of drug education programmes indicates that they compa re favourably with the cost effectiveness of most law enforcement approache s, but are not as cost effective as treatment. While there are some methodo logical qualifications, the drug education literature does indicate that so undly conceptualized and rigorously implemented programmes can influence dr ug using behaviour and that comprehensive provision of such programmes is l ikely to produce a net social cost saving to society. This does not mean th at proven drug education programs will necessarily be implemented. The most powerful factor in the implementation process is selection of programmes o n the basis of ideal outcomes, rather than on the evidence of what can real istically be achieved. Ultimately, this is self-defeating, because programm e failures will again discredit the whole drug education approach. Drug edu cation programmes must be selected because they have demonstrated the abili ty to have a beneficial impact on youth drug use and youth drug problems.