A broad approach to drug abuse prevention involves affective or humanistic education (although the term humanistic is likely to trigger negative responses in people who hold certain religious and social views). Public schools have turned away from the “scare ’em” approach toward one that emphasizes the judgment and social skills that are necessary to avoid substance abuse.

Some research indicates that this approach shows promise only with youngsters who are not likely to become problem drug users in the first place. The U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention maintains that a “life skills” approach problem solving skills, decision-making skills, resistance skills against adverse peer influences, and social and communication skills “is associated with short-term reductions in substance abuse among adolescents” and recommends that “life skills curricula should be recognized as an important component of effective substance abuse prevention programs for adolescents”.
Read the rest of this entry »

The standard educational approach has been to present factual information about the dangers of substance abuse because it was assumed that increased knowledge would serve as an effective deterrent by enabling students to make rational decisions not to use drugs. Unfortunately, this information has been frequently burdened with moral judgments about drug use.

The “scare” lecture of physical education teachers or nonschool personnel such as police officers has often been integral to this approach. Although intended to frighten students away from dangerous substances, these lectures often contain so much misinformation or exaggeration that they raise students’ skepticism and jeopardize all drug education efforts. Young people have often found, through their own experiences of drug use and what friends tell them, that they have been lied to, and this leads them to mistrust adult sources of information on drugs.
Read the rest of this entry »

Drug use has a psychosociological dimension according to which the actor must learn that ingesting certain chemicals is desirable; intoxication, for example, is not inherently pleasurable. Expectations are based on learning and influence the direction of drug use. Thus, naive drug users, such as hospitalized patients who are given doses of morphine to relieve pain, do not experience euphoria and do not continue to seek out opiates when the pain subsides.

People who believe that they are drinking alcohol when actually they have been given nonalcoholic substitutes get more relaxed and outgoing, and a party atmosphere develops. Indeed, levels of sexual arousal increase when people who are given a placebo believe that they have imbibed alcohol, although alcohol reduces sexual performance.
Read the rest of this entry »

The behaviorist stresses—and has been able to prove—that animal behavior can be modified through the proper application of operant conditioning: positive and negative reinforcement. Behavior is “strengthened by its consequences, and for that reason the consequences themselves are called ‘reinforcers.’”

When some aspect of (animal or human) behavior is followed by a certain type of consequence—a reward—the behavior is more likely to be repeated. The reward is called positive reinforcement. If the probability of a behavior goes up after the removal of a stimulus, then negative reinforcement has occurred.
Read the rest of this entry »