“Just Say No” doesn't work

Dr. Susan Ennett: So you have all these, although whether they're still in use now God only knows, but school-based drug prevention programs. It focused really almost wholly on the influence of friends on kid drinking or smoking. The premise was you would just teach kids how to resist those influences from friends. Well, that really falls apart as a very effective Public Health Intervention when you think, "Oh gosh, we've got lots of other things going on." Kids are choosing people on the basis that they're already smoking and drinking, or they're not, and they're choosing similar friends. In fact, they are being influenced like friends as in those programs, but then add on the popularity element that Bob was just talking about... well that's a huge thing for kids. Having all of this data on multiple levels really allowed us to look at some old questions, if you will, and new questions, but in a much more comprehensive way. You find that it's a whole lot more complicated than we ever thought.

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