The facts are terrifying. Marijuana impairs judgment, motor coordination, causes anxiety and panic attacks. Alcohol use impairs memory. Alcohol abuse can cause dangerous blackouts, mental confusion and lead to liver disease. The Above the Influence program reports that more than 29 percent of teens in treatment are dependent on prescription medications. Drug and alcohol prevention programs are designed to reduce a person's risk for using drugs and becoming addicted.
Caring School Community
Caring School Community (CSC) Program is a national drug-prevention program for children in kindergarten through sixth grade. The purpose of CSC is to develop students' connection to their school community, increase academic motivation and achievement. The ultimate goal is to reduce drug use, violence and delinquency.
This in-school program provides teachers with age-appropriate classroom lessons, activity books and take-home assignments. Students are taught to take responsibility for their behavior and they learn about fairness, being helpful, caring and respectful.
The program is intended to be implemented over the course of one school year. An earlier incarnation of CSC, known as the Child Development Project, was evaluated over a 20-year period. Summary findings, which looked at six different school districts in urban and rural schools, those with diverse economic and ethnic populations, indicated that alcohol use was 13 percent lower than expected if the program was non-existent and showed a19-percent lower use of marijuana among participating students. A follow-up study of former students found that delinquent behavior was curbed by 13 percent.
Project Alert
Project Alert is a two-year substance-abuse prevention program for students in seventh and eight grades developed by the RAND corporation, a think tank. It's a nationally recognized, evidence-based program that provides students with the skills needed to resist the temptation of substance abuse.
The Project Alert curriculum includes lessons, posters, and teaching plans and support. Teachers are instructed on ways to discuss consequences of drug, alcohol and tobacco use, including the social, physical and psychological effects. The program also addresses a kind of peer pressure not often explored with children: messages relayed in advertising and the media.
Above the Influence
Above the Influence is an online, anti-drug campaign that is intended for young adults. Part of the National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign, Above the Influence was spearheaded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. It offers facts, statistics, entertaining videos about drug abuse and its consequences and much more. AboveTheInfluence.com addresses a verity of issues related to drug-abuse, such as peer pressure and depression.
Children of any age can go to AbovetheInfluence.com to play games, create poetry, engage in activities and watch sketches geared towards a youthful perspective.
The popularity and effectiveness of Above the Influence has been proved. Its commercials, according to IAG Research, are the 10 most-watched television ads running in the country.
