School‐based educational programs to prevent the personal use of psychoactive drugs for non‐medical purposes

This paper mainly concerns school‐based education programs designed to prevent the personal use of psychoactive drugs for non‐medical purposes. Major types of programs are noted and recent trends identified. Overall drug education seems to bring about, at least, short term increases in knowledge but the effects on attitudes and behaviours have been mixed and, perhaps, sometimes negative. Some interactions between different types of drug education approaches and student characteristics have been suggested and more research on interactions is needed. Some reasons why drug education has not been demonstrated to have a substantial impact on students' use of drugs are considered and future directions for the practice and the evaluation of drug education are suggested.