Influence of a substance-abuse-prevention curriculum on violence-related behavior

Objective: To test the impact of a school-based substance-abuse prevention program, Project Towards No Drug Abuse (TND), on risk for violence. Methods: Logistic regression analyses tested whether victimization, perpetration, or weapon carrying differed for intervention students relative to control students within a sample of 850 continuation high school students followed over 12 months. Results: We observed a higher risk for victimization (OR=1.57) among male control students. No intervention effect was observed for female students or for perpetration among males. Conclusion: The findings provide limited support for a generalization of TND's preventive effect.