Science, policy and practice--lessons from America

The experience in the United States regarding drug abuse prevention has involved three entities: scientific researchers, practitioners who work with youth, and policy makers. To the degree that each of these entities play complimentary roles, society benefits. In the past, these three entities have not collaborated or taken advantage of the strengths that each has to offer. Future goals should place an emphasis on scientific researchers contributing to the development and rigorous testing of programmatic approaches. Practitioners not only need to adopt effective programs and implement with fidelity, but also need to provide scientists opportunities to collaborate in order to make programs work for specific settings and populations. Finally, policy makers need to support prevention with funding and policy that is friendly to effective prevention and immune from political whims. Entities outside the United States can learn from the thirty years of experience of prevention experienced in North America.