Effects of State Education Requirements for Substance Use Prevention

Would youths be less likely to use alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD) if they were better informed about the physiological, legal, and/or social consequences of use?  We test this hypothesis using comprehensive primary data collection documenting variation in the timing and content of state laws requiring ATOD prevention to be taught in schools and rich data on over one million 8^th, 10^th, and 12^th grade students from the Monitoring the Future Study from 1976-2008 (a period covering 25 state adoptions).  Two-way fixed effects models with controls for many other ATOD-related policies and state characteristics indicate that the ATOD education requirements significantly reduced recent alcohol and marijuana use among youths.  Notably, there is no evidence that the education requirements significantly changed the likelihood or amount of drug education.  Taken together, these results suggest that the education requirements likely changed the content of ATOD instruction.  Consistent with this inference, we find that state laws explicitly requiring schools to teach about the social consequences of substance use significantly increased the reported value of drug education and increased the likelihood that students report not using drugs due to concerns about lack of ambition, lethargy, and not wanting to lose control.  We also find that state laws explicitly requiring schools to teach about the legal consequences of substance use significantly increased the likelihood that students report not using drugs for concerns about getting arrested.  Our results suggest that education policies may be effective at reducing youth substance use and its harms.