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Billions of dollars are spent annually on school-based drug education programs, with youthful drug use remaining near peak levels since the 1980s. Institutional, policy, and program evidence presented here suggests that although primarily delivered in schools, the educational community rarely participates in the development of drug education; and despite the finding that "no-use" programs such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) or Life-Skills Training (LST) are likely ineffective, they continue to thrive in schools. This may be explained by insufficient educational participation and scientific discourse considering these issues; and the role of interest group politics, such as the symbiotic relationship between government, researchers, and the tobacco industry, in drug education. In addition to this evidence, resilience based program alternatives, evaluation, and implications are discussed.

Within the context of a large-scale, comprehensive evaluation of the California Drug Alcohol Tobacco Education (DATE) program, this study sought to extend knowledge of student perceptions of prevention education using a naturalistic approach. The constant comparative method was used to analyze 40 focus group interviews of risk and thriving groups conducted in 11 high, middle, and elementary school districts. This article presents three assertions generated solely from 490 "narrative stories" found in the data set. "At-risk" and "thriving" students at all three levels of schooling (a) use "story" to make sense of prevention education, and (b) distinguish use from abuse. High school students of both groups (c) believe that hearing only one side of the substance use/abuse story and strict expulsion policies further alienate students most in need of help. Implications for the use of story as an assessment tool are discussed, as are implications for substance use prevention policy.