Drug Free Youth

The highly acclaimed comprehensive guide to getting your child through the formative pre-teen, teen, and college years drug-free—now completely revised and updated. Nearly every child will be offered drugs or alcohol before graduating high school, and excessive drinking is common at most colleges. But the good news is that a child who gets to age twenty-one without smoking, using illegal drugs, or abusing alcohol or prescription drugs is virtually certain never to do so. Drawing on more than two decades of research at The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASAColumbia), founder Joseph A. Califano, Jr., presents a clear, common-sense guide to helping kids stay drug-free. All parents dream of a healthy, productive, and fulfilling future for their children; Califano shows which specific actions work and what parents can do to teach, protect, and empower their children to have the greatest chance of making that future come true. Teenagers who learn about the risks of drugs from their parents are twice as likely never to try them, and this book provides the tools parents need to prepare their children for those crucial decision-making moments. In this revised and updated edition, Califano tackles some of the newest obstacles standing between our kids and a drug-free life—from social media sites and cell phone apps to the explosion in prescription and over-the-counter drug abuse and the increased dangers and addictive power of marijuana. He reveals what teens can’t or won’t tell their parents about their thoughts on drugs and alcohol, and combines the latest research with his discussions with thousands of parents and teens about the challenges that widespread access to drugs and alcohol present, and how parents can instill in their teens the will and skills to choose not to use. Califano’s insightful and lively guide is as readable as it is informative.

First published in 1997. There is an almost universal consensus that we as adult individuals, as communities, and as a nation, should attempt to prevent our youngsters from using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. For three and a half years, from 1990 to 1994, a team of researchers and clinical practitioners from Fordham University's Graduate School of Social Service, with funding from the New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services, worked to review the literature published in the past two decades pertaining to the content and outcomes of adolescent substance abuse prevention programs which had been fielded during that twenty-year period. The results were presented to over a thousand substance abuse prevention specialists in a series of seminars throughout New York State. This book is a result of a need of effective strategies and training for those present were working in the field, in schools and community agencies, attempting to accomplish adolescent substance abuse prevention.

First published in 1997. There is an almost universal consensus that we as adult individuals, as communities, and as a nation, should attempt to prevent our youngsters from using alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. For three and a half years, from 1990 to 1994, a team of researchers and clinical practitioners from Fordham University's Graduate School of Social Service, with funding from the New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services, worked to review the literature published in the past two decades pertaining to the content and outcomes of adolescent substance abuse prevention programs which had been fielded during that twenty-year period. The results were presented to over a thousand substance abuse prevention specialists in a series of seminars throughout New York State. This book is a result of a need of effective strategies and training for those present were working in the field, in schools and community agencies, attempting to accomplish adolescent substance abuse prevention.

Have you ever thought of how we could make difficult subjects interesting, how we could make boring subjects interesting and, in this case, then how we can make health interesting, especially to the young people? This is what this short collective is all about. Having thought critically in my earlier years as a health professional and an artist, I always wanted to solve the puzzle, to crack the case especially around how you can make health interesting to the youth and eventually how you could make any subject interesting and fun. And in my many years of research and creative thinking, I found that we could use poetry for health, and boom! This collective is a proof that this actually works. Compiling these works of art predominantly from Kenya was every bit fun and insightful and inspiring. The drug-free youth poetry contest was a project under Stowelink, which is a company I founded, where we invited youth from all over the country to talk about drug abuse and how drug abuse links up to the development of non-communicable diseases. the poetry contest attracted a readership of over 300,000 people in one month’s period and I couldn’t be happier to have documented the top pieces of this contest in this amazing book. These pieces of poetry could be used in schools, institutions, and learning centers across all ages to get the message out on drug abuse and also to teach the populations on non-communicable diseases. I know you are ready to dive in and have this great out of body experience and excitement just as I felt writing and compiling these pieces!