Psychoenvironmental Forces And Substance Abuse Prevention (cognition And Language: A Series In Psycholinguistics)

Psychoenvironmental Forces in Substance Abuse Prevention COGNITION AND LANGUAGE A Series in Psycholinguistics • Series Editor: R. W. RIEBER Recent Volumes in this Series: AMERICAN AND CHINESE PERCEPTIONS AND BELIEF SYSTEMS: A People’s Republic of China–Taiwanese Comparison Lorand B. Szalay, Jean B. Strohl, Liu Fu, and Pen-Shui Lao THE COLLECTED WORKS OF L. S. VYGOTSKY Volume 1: Problems of General Psychology Volume 2: The Fundamentals of Defectology (Abnormal Psychology and Learning Disabilities) Edited by Robert W. Rieber and Aaron S. Carton Volume 3: Problems of the Theory and History of Psychology Edited by Robert W. Rieber and Jeffrey Wollock Volume 4: The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions Volume 5: Child Psychology Edited by Robert W. Rieber EXPERIMENTAL SLIPS AND HUMAN ERROR: Exploring the Architecture of Volition Edited by Bernard J. Baars LANGUAGE, THOUGHT, AND THE BRAIN Tatyana Glezerman and Victoria Balkoski PSYCHOENVIRONMENTAL FORCES IN SUBSTANCE ABUSE PREVENTION Lorand B. Szalay, Jean Bryson Strohl, and Kathleen T. Doherty THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE AND COGNITION Robert W. Rieber and Harold J. Vetter TIME, WILL, AND MENTAL PROCESS Jason W. Brown UNDERSTANDING MEXICANS AND AMERICANS: Cultural Perspectives in Conflict Rogelio Diaz-Guerrero and Lorand B. Szalay A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher. Psychoenvironmental Forces in Substance Abuse Prevention Lorand B. Szalay and Jean Bryson Strohl Institute of Comparative Social and Cultural Studies, Inc. Chevy Chase, Maryland and Kathleen T. Doherty Gettysburg College Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Kluwer Academic Publishers New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow eBook ISBN: Print ISBN: 0-306-47158-2 0-306-45963-9 ©2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow Print © 1999 Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers New York All rights reserved No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Kluwer Online at: and Kluwer's eBookstore at: http://kluweronline.com http://ebooks.kluweronline.com Preface The three major causes of death in the US are all drug related . . . If we could reduce substance abuse, we could save lives, save money and enjoy a better and less expensive health care system. . . . The answer to recent increases in teen drug use is renewed prevention efforts that have at their core a no-use message; such programs cut drug use in half in the 1980s. —Joseph Califano, President Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia University Is Drug Prevention Possible? In a world alarmed and bewildered by the pandemic growth and devastation caused by drug abuse, drug prevention is certainly an appealing idea. Yet, as attractive as it is, there is much professional skepticism and little evidence that drug prevention works, or that it is realistically feasible. If one can view drug abuse as unpredictable and determined by the substance chosen, and that the person is outside of the equation, it i