Prevention of poly-drugs addiction and reduction of drug-related harms programs for young people in recreational settings

The consumption of drugs in recreational settings is increasing in Europe and it is becoming a growing phenomenon especially among young people. The recreational settings, and in particular the night-life ones, represent the best places where to implement actions for preventing and reducing drug use, dependence and drug-related harms. While in other prevention contexts (i.e. school) many studies and research about the effectiveness of the programmes are available, the knowledge-base is not so developed regarding prevention in recreational settings. This for two main reasons: prevention in recreational settings is at the moment only translated into experimental actions, while prevention in traditional contexts like school, peer groups or local community is not; the traditional methodologies of epidemiological research adopted for the evaluation of prevention programmes are not applicable to these kinds of action, because it is not possible to have a stable sample during time (time-series).The project proposed aimed to fill these knowledge-gaps through research and analysis actions promoted by an interdisciplinary transnational workgroup in order to improve the knowledge base and the exchange of information about the prevention and reduction of drug-related harms programs in recreational environments.