REPORT SUGGESTS WAYS TO CURB SUBSTANCE ABUSE BY YOUNG PEOPLE

VANCOUVER -- A study published yesterday in the medical journal
Lancet suggests a number of ways to curb substance by young people.

More than 300,000 people worldwide between the ages of 15 and 29 died
from the use of alcohol or illicit drugs in 2000, according to
University of Victoria researcher Tim Stockwell and John Toumbourou
of Deakin University in Australia.

Their team surveyed the leading methods of prevention and
intervention for substance abuse by young people to determine what
actually works. Their quest is motivated by grim statistics published
for the first time showing the alarming toll alcohol and drugs are taking.

In the developed world, the deaths of 31 per cent of people between
the ages of 15 and 29 in 2000 could have been linked to drugs and alcohol.

"It's by any account a large number of people dying prematurely from
totally preventable causes," said Dr. Stockwell, who noted that
tobacco-related deaths couldn't be included in the tally because the
group is too young to see the health-related effects of smoking.

"There is evidence there are strategies that will be successful and
if implemented, we could make a real dent, a real reduction in these
unnecessary deaths," he said.

A review of previous research showed teens are drinking and smoking
to conform to peer pressures, reinforce identity, escape or
self-manage a perceived problem.

The study found that regulating the sale of substances works best in
preventing abuse -- if they're expensive and harder to get, teens
won't use them.

"Controls on price, usually through taxation, are among the
interventions with the highest evidence for effectiveness in reducing
levels of harm in the population, especially for young people," the study said.

That conclusion leads Dr. Stockwell to wonder if that type of model
is necessary for the sale of cannabis in Canada.

"The prohibition model doesn't restrict its availabilty to young
people; it appears to encourage it," he said.

"We'd probably have a better handle on the problem if it was taxed
and sold under very restrictive circumstances and if there were
public campaigns to reduce its attractiveness, particularly to young people."

Education campaigns, according to the study, have proven remarkably
effective in keeping teens away from drugs and alcohol, but only if
they're reinforced over time.

In the United States, the study found that for every dollar spent on
drug education programs during the first 15 years of a child's life,
the government saves $5.

But prevention, Dr. Stockwell cautioned, isn't the only route society
must follow.

"Prevention around substance use problems is to stop kids from using
drugs, end of story," he said. "We're saying it's the harm in the
whole population, it's all these deaths, all this disability and
illness that we are trying to reduce. We need a comprehensive range
of strategies."

He said that not all types of interventions work for all communities.

For example, though they've been proven to cut back on disease
transmission, needle exchanges aren't necessary in schools, he said,
nor are methadone clinics for heroin addicts suited for the workplace.

"You do have to tailor interventions to particular groups," he said.
"There's a distinction between what you might call universal or
population-wide strategies, and then there's more targeted strategies
for more high-risk or vulnerable populations."

The study suggested that treatment must also be a part of the
prevention strategy.

The researchers also encouraged doctors to get more involved, saying
even a brief chat with a doctor directed toward risks of excessive
consumption can help young people cut back.

The study was part of a special series published in the Lancet this week.

With more than half of the world's population under the age of 25,
researchers decided to take a global look at the management of teen
health and have found it woefully neglected.