t is trite to say, "Prevention is better than cure," for it's a phrase every child should know. Yet the reality of life is that prevention is usually neglected or ignored until a crisis situation develops or the problem greatly worsens, causing societal alarm. This has been especially evident in dealing with alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. The so-called "legal drugs are even ignored in spite of some public pressure.
Despite addiction and devestating effects upon the individual, the family, and the nation, rehabilitation or cure have taken the attention while the problem continues to grow. Reasoning from cause to effect, one would think, should take the stage, yet education, motivation plans, or even limited legislation endeavors have not received public enthusiasm.
The reason for this is that alcohol and tobacco are strongly entwined with social life, habit, and the so-called pleasure of addiction. Many ask, Why can't we eliminate the harmful effects and continue the pleasurable habits? Much has been done with research to this end, but the problems have not significantly abated.
So we have been driven to the realization that prevention is the only rational method. As the late Dr. Andrews C. Ivy said, "In that we do not know who will become an alcoholic until he or she drinks, there is only one known scientific method of prevention: the individual choice not to drink."
Talking about treatment for addiction one day in New York, Dr. Ivy, a doctor of medicine, law, and science from Chicago, Dr. Haven Emerson, New York director of public health, and Professor W. A. Scharffenberg, direct of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's temperance department, came to the conclusion that an increase in prevention education was urgently needed. The year was 1950, and the U. S. National Committee for the Prevention of Alcoholism was born. Two years later the International Commission for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Drug Dependency (ICPA) was founded.
This year--2002--marks the ICPA's fiftieth anniversary of community service.
The ICPA was to be a nonsectarian, nonpolitical volunteer educational and professional body, spotlighting prevention through institutes, seminars, and congresses, and the securing of support from government, medical, educational, and religious leaders. Throughout the following years, national committees were established in more than 60 countries. Twelve world prevention congresses and multiple institutes of scientific studies have been convened around the world. Hundreds of contacts with world leaders have been made concerning this issue.
The ICPA has served as a prevention catalyst with the executive directors and other officers meeting with national leaders to advise them on prevention principles, policies, and program. Worldwide concern about the problems of alcohol and other drugs has waned in the past five years. Interdiction of drugs and penalties for drug peddling and use has taken the public attention.
Yet many feel encouraged with the trend toward physical fitness and better diet causing a modest social turn against alcohol use. This, coupled with the known facts about the large variety of alcohol-related diseases, has contributed to a decline in alcohol problems.
Yet a major concern today is the high use of alcohol with binge drinking by youth as well as increasing consumption by women. Drunk driving still takes a major toll on life; crime reflects alcohol's deadline effects; airlines, too, neglect to recognize the nee of non-use of alcohol in-flight. These problems cry out for preventive action.
There needs to be a coordinated plan for government collaborating with prevention organizations to establish task forces for regional prevention programming and guidance toward effective prevention legislation and education.
All this is limited without the will and spirit for something better. This is the hour of opportunity for spiritual leaders to give moral inspiration to society for positive alternatives.
Many have given up hope, believing that they are battling alone against the forces of evil evident through drug use. But we have the solution: encouraging an individual choice for something better, assuring all that alcohol and other drugs are not essential to life at its best. Remove the demand, and the producers and sellers can and will be curtailed through legislation and social restraint. A change will come. I can be done. Prevention simply must be declared and encouraged. The ICPA needs your involvement and support.
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*Reprinted by permission.
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Ernest Steed, Ph.D., LL.D., is honorary president of and special consultant to the International Commission for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Drug Dependency.
