Integrating strategies from alcohol prevention and best practice parenting to prevent teen marijuana use

While the debate about marijuana legalization wages on, The Opportunity Alliance (TOA) has been on the forefront of engaging parents in the prevention of teen marijuana use.   Combining evidence based strategies in alcohol prevention, best practices in parenting education, with the limited research on marijuana prevention, the Public Health Program of TOA has been educating parents, teachers, and community members on teen marijuana use while also providing support and skill building opportunities for prevention.

This session will first describe how the current research on alcohol prevention and parenting education aligns with current research on marijuana prevention.  This includes increasing enforcement, increasing parental disapproval of marijuana use by teens, increasing parents’ ability to provide consistent structure and nurture to their teens as well as their ability and comfort talking to other parents and community members about the problem of teen marijuana use.

Secondly, this session will demonstrate how TOA has used that research and a community engagement model to create materials, resources, and advocate for community level policy changes that are likely to have a long term impact on teen marijuana use regardless of the outcome of legalization efforts.  Those materials include advertisements, online and paper resources, as well as presentations and skill building workshops for parents, teachers, staff of youth serving organizations, and community members.  Policy changes include school district substance abuse policies and police department policies that increase enforcement of teen marijuana use while also increasing the use of diversion programs as the consequence for use.