TAXATION GOOD DEFENCE AGAINST SUBSTANCE ABUSE

If Drugs Are Expensive Teens Won't Buy Them, Researchers Say

VANCOUVER -- Taxes, nagging and creative thinking offer the best
defence against teen substance abuse, says a new study to be published today.

More than 300,000 people worldwide between the ages of 15 and 29 died
from the use of alcohol or illicit drugs in 2000, numbers that
University of Victoria researcher Dr. Tim Stockwell called "substantial."

Stockwell and his colleague Dr. John Toumbourou of Deakin University
in Australia suggest in a study to be published in the medical
journal Lancet today that an ounce of prevention is well worth a pound of cure.

The team surveyed the leading methods of prevention and intervention
for adolescent substance abuse to determine what actually works when
trying to keep teens away from drugs and alcohol.

Their quest is motivated by grim statistics published for the first
time showing the alarming toll alcohol and drugs are taking on teen health.

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

"It's by any account a large number of people dying prematurely from
totally preventable causes," said 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," said Stockwell.

A review of previous research showed teens are drinking and smoking
to conform to peer pressures but also to individualize their
identity, escape or self-manage a perceived problem. But the Lancet
study found that regulating the use and sale of drugs works the best
in preventing further abuse -- if it's expensive and harder to get,
teens won't use it.

"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. The conclusion has led Stockwell to wonder if a similar
model is necessary for the sale of cannabis in Canada.

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