ABSTRACT
Much of the effort to address the enormous social problem of drug abuse and addiction has aimed to prevent initiation of and experimentation with drug use. Given the pernicious nature of the development of addiction and the challenges of treating it, many have taken the opinion that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This emphasis is typical in interventions related to drug abuse in the mass media and classroom. Public drug abuse interventions, by which we refer to those outside of a clinical context, have focused overwhelmingly on prevention, especially among young people. Today’s youth are exposed to a wide variety of antidrug messages which are widespread in public education and in various media, especially television. Though few question the legitimacy of the aims of public drug abuse interventions, some have strongly criticized their results and questioned whether they justify their expense, which is often publically funded (e.g., McCambridge, 2007; Werb et al. 2011). Establishing whether interventions are generally effective and why they succeed or fail is critical for determining whether and how they should be done. Accordingly, an impressive cumulative body of empirical research has addressed the fundamental question; do antidrug messages work?
