Popular and Unpopular Prevention

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Abstract
Popular prevention, modeled on therapy, involves working with adequate people in life-enhancement activities. In contrast, unpopular prevention is policy-oriented and aims at the social, economic, and political structures contributing to alcohol and drug abuse. Until the policies that reinforce the status quo change, alcohol and drug abuse prevention efforts will be unsuccessful and trivial, and popular prevention will continue to spawn programs that are piecemeal, cosmetic, ineffective, fun, and futile. Before instituting programs, prevention coordinators would do well to re-examine the most damaging and costly forms of drug abuse and raise the questions: do these efforts have anything to do with stabilizing current drug abuse? Will they have any impact on the primary drugs of abuse, alcohol and tobacco? Does the program offer anything substantive to help with problems related to drug-induced nutritional deficiency, industrial chemicals, food additives, OTC concoctions, and ethical pharmaceuticals? Or is the focus on illicit recreational euphoriants? Reviewing these and other burning questions, the author is less than optimistic about the future of prevention.

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