Drug abuse prevention
UNODC assists Member States in developing prevention activities that provide people, particularly the young, with the information, the skills and the opportunities to make healthy choices, including avoid starting to use drugs.
Drug abuse prevention among youth works
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Drug abuse prevention programmes are effective if they respond to the needs and involve all the relevant sectors of a community, and, they include evidence-based interventions, as well as strong monitoring and evaluation components. Such programmes are not only effective, but are cost-effective. For each dollar spent, they have been shown to save at least 4US$ in costs for drug abuse treatment and counselling. If other costs to society, such as crime, unemployment and other health costs were to be counted, the cost effectiveness of good drug abuse prevention is likely to be even greater. |
| UNODC has been working for many years to identify good practices with the help of youth and community-based organizations through two major projects, the Global Youth Networkand the Global Initiative on Primary Prevention of Substance Abuse. With the help of other experts (academics, practitioners and UN agencies), we have identified together what works and what does not work in prevention. You can find the all the results of this work, including publications and training materials, as well as resources from many other organisations, by visiting the websites of the projects. We hope that our publications will be useful to youth and community-based organizations involved in prevention around the world. |
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Preventing drug abuse in the workplace
Once people have left school and have started to work, the workplace becomes one of the most important settings that can shape their health and through which they can be reached. UNODC has many years of experience in working with employers and employees together to develop and implement policies against substance abuse in the workplace.
Such policies are designed to promote the health of employees by preventing substance abuse and assisting to those with a dependence problem. Moreover, through such policies companies can achieve substantial savings by reducing absenteeism and increasing productivity. For example, a successful UNODC project in Brazil lead to a decrease of:
 16% in the number of smokers;
12.5% in the use of alcohol;
28.7% in the use of illicit drugs;
10% in employees taking sick-leave;
30% in employees being late;
34% in accidents in the workplace due to the abuse of substances. |