School-based drug prevention, popular with the public and politicians alike, is now a nearly universal experience for American youth. Analysis has shown that the best programs can reduce use of a wide range of substances. But questions remain regarding how to think about and, hence, fund, these programs. Should they be viewed principally as weapons in the war against illicit drugs, or, at the other extreme, do prevention programs benefit students and society most by reducing use of alcohol and tobacco? The authors address these questions by comparing for the first time the social benefits of school-based prevention programs' long-run impacts on a diverse set of different substances.

Ever since the Shanghai convention in 1909, the threat posed to human well-being by drug abuse has led countries around the world to take action to deal with their drug problems. There are wide variations in the policies pursued, but most countries try to reduce both the supply of and the demand for drugs. Unfortunately, there is little research consensus on the respective merits of these two approaches or about the best ways to pursue them. Consequently, control and prevention policies are mostly driven by political considerations, economic realities and cultural expectations, though research has played an important part in formulating and evaluating treatments for drug addiction. This volume reviews studies on drug abuse prevention and treatment strategies under five main areas: 1. Reducing supply - strategies to control the flow of drugs from production to retail distribution; 2. Reducing demand - prevention of drug use at all stages of involvement and consumption levels; 3. Reducing harm - promoting situational risk reduction practices for regular users, addicts and recreational users; 4. Reducing addiction - drug treatment options for various groups in various settings; and 5. Drug policies and prescriptions - focused on debates about prohibition and legalization.

This wide-ranging handbook brings together experts in the sociology of drug abuse prevention. Providing a comprehensive overview of the accumulated knowledge on prevention theory, intervention design, and development and prevention research methodology, this work also promotes prevention science as an evolving field in the practice and policy of drug abuse prevention.

Authors Raymond P. Daugherty and Carl Leukefeld argue for replacing the youth-based, `zero tolerance' approach to substance abuse prevention that has been dominant in the field over the past two decades. Their dynamic alternative is the Lifestyle Risk Reduction Model, which revises standard prevention strategies to make them relevant throughout the entire life span. Features of this revolutionary new paradigm include Five Principles of Lifestyle Risk Reduction (LRR), Five Conditions of Effective LRR, and the LLR Formulas.