Estimating the Effects of Drug Prevention Programs (Follow-Up Study)

Estimating the Effects of Drug Prevention Programs (Follow-Up Study)

PI(s): Jonathan Caulkins, Rosalie Pacula

Funded by: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

In 1999, the DPRC released An Ounce of Prevention, a Pound of Uncertainty, in which Jonathan Caulkins and his colleagues sought to estimate the cost-effectiveness of school-based prevention programs at reducing cocaine consumption. As indicated by the title, the estimates were very uncertain, but they furnished some basis for comparison with DPRC's earlier estimates of the cost-effectiveness of enforcement and treatment strategies. All of this work was limited to reduction in cocaine consumption as a measure of merit. School-based prevention, however, is also directed to reducing marijuana, cigarette, and alcohol consumption, and many such programs seek to reduce all substance use. An Ounce of Prevention thus included some rough estimates of cost-effectiveness in relation to the additional substances. In a new project sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Caulkins and his colleagues are refining these estimates.