Prevention Program Scavenger Hunt - Essay Example

1. b) Substance abuse prevention programs in communities
   Community substance abuse prevention programs connect the need to provide care to users besides availing the appropriate treatment options for the various categories of addiction. Other than bridging this divide, such programs facilitate a sense of collective responsibility among members of a community towards the fight against drugs. By getting communities involved in the process of preventing substance abuse, there will be corresponding drops in crime rates and drug-related diseases. Through such community prevention programs, resources that would have been directed towards correcting drug-related problems are spared for use in other more productive areas. The programs, therefore, fulfill the basic principle of “prevention is better than cure”.
2. c) SAMHSA

By administering grants and through funding, SAMHSA works towards putting in place a public health policy with regards to mental health and substance abuse. The organization equally compliments the efforts of the state to spread out and improve quality, accessibility, and variety of facilities proving treatment services for mental health cases as well as substance abuse. With a focus on small communities where the target groups can be served with utmost effectiveness, the organization provides needed support to initiatives by faith-based groups in the war on drug and substance abuse. Such support gives these groups to forge private sector partnerships in building outreach as they wage war on drug abuse.

1. d) NIDA on school drug testing

NIDA holds the opinion that as a result of insufficient research in this area, and the mixed results from the few studies conducted so far, it is very difficult to determine the impact of drug tests on use by students with absolute certainty. One of the cited studies indicates that athlete students who were involved in mandatory tests showed general usage rates identical to their counterparts who were not mandated to undergo such tests. Such empirical evidence contrasts most school testing policies that integrate testing as a restraint. To this effect, NIDA as an organization is yet to provide its official stand on drug testing in schools but provide the negative and positive aspects of such a policy.  They however clearly advise that the policy cannot be effective on its own but should instead, be part of a more comprehensive drug prevention policy (DuPont, Brady & Hazelden Foundation, 2005).  

1. e) URL to the RADAR Network Center for your state.

I’m a resident of New York City and the state’s URL for RADAR Network Center is http://www.alcoholism.org/programs/resourcecenter.php. The center here is no different from those in other states all over America. The center works in delivering the message of preventing drug abuse by distributing information from federal drug-related programs after customizing such to meet the specific needs of communities within the state. The Network supports efforts that nurture preventative responses to local communities by providing information on education and training, youth services, and community outreach programs within the state on their website.

1. f) Policy- United States War on Drugs in the United States of America

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was created by congress in 1973 as the official administration policy on drugs, two years after President Nixon had declared drugs “public enemy number one” earlier in 1971. In the United States, therefore, the war on drugs has been waged for about 40 years now. It was the initial objective of this policy to curtail the flow of drugs in the United States with the government has held an opinion that reduced availability of drugs would consequently lessen the consumption; this supply against demand strategy was not effective as traffickers changed routes and the drugs still ended up in the streets of America (Miller, 2004).

Since the beginning of the war on drugs in America, most drug-related policies have been punitive for those involved regardless of whether they are users or dealers. There has been no focus on prevention for the most part.  These policies have most focus on eliminating trafficking(supply), rather than cutting down on demand and in as much as there are prevention-related programs across America, the number of resources involved in stopping supply is far too much compared to prevention funding.