implications of the current findings are far reaching. The prevention of both alcohol and illicit drug abuse requires strategies that target early adolescence and take into account the highly differential influence that population-based factors may exert by stage of substance use. The lack of information concerning the precise stage of alcohol or drug use most associated with sociodemographic factors may partly explain the modest success observed for certain prevention strategies.41–43 An additional challenge for national policy concerns the emergence of drug instrumentalization models that emphasize the adaptive role that psychoactive substances may play in the daily lives of nondependent individuals.44 The critical evaluation of such perspectives and the development of appropriate national policy on alcohol and drug use can only be achieved through empirical data describing the nature of harm or risk posed by alcohol and drugs.
