Can the Military Help Prevent Drug Use Among Youth?
This research brief describes work documented in Preventing Drug Use Among Youth Through Community Outreach: The Military’s Pilot Programs (MR-536-OSD). Excerpt: Illegal drug use is a major problem confronting the United States today, and the Congress, in an effort to marshal additional resources to address this problem, directed the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish pilot outreach programs designed to reduce drug use among youth. Congress also directed the Secretary of Defense to report on the effectiveness of these programs and to recommend whether they should be continued. Researchers from the National Defense Research Institute and the Drug Policy Research Center in RAND’s Domestic Research Division assisted in the evaluation, documenting the results of their efforts in Preventing Drug Use Among Youth Through Community Outreach: The Military’s Pilot Programs. The following are the five central policy issues investigated and the results obtained.
