This volume reviews a range of empirically supported approaches to prevention and treatment of adolescent substance use problems. The focus is on motivationally based brief interventions that can be delivered in a variety of contexts, that address key developmental considerations, and that draw on cutting-edge knowledge on addictive behavior change. From expert contributors, coverage encompasses alcohol skills training; integrative behavioral and family therapy; motivational interviewing; interventions for dually diagnosed youth; Internet-based education, prevention, and treatment; and applications to HIV prevention. The volume is extensively referenced and includes numerous clinical illustrations and vignettes.

Adolescent substance abuse is the nation's #1 public health problem. It originates out of a developmental era where experimentation with the world is increasingly taking place, and where major changes in physical self and social relationships are taking place. These changes cannot be understood by any one discipline nor can they be described by focusing only on the behavioral and social problems of this age period, the characteristics of normal development, or the pharmacology and addictive potential of specific drugs. They require knowledge of the brain's systems of reward and control, genetics, psychopharmacology, personality, child development, psychopathology, family dynamics, peer group relationships, culture, social policy, and more. Drawing on the expertise of the leading researchers in this field, this Handbook provides the most comprehensive summarization of current knowledge about adolescent substance abuse. The Handbook is organized into eight sections covering the literature on the developmental context of this life period, the epidemiology of adolescent use and abuse, similarities and differences in use, addictive potential, and consequences of use for different drugs; etiology and course as characterized at different levels of mechanistic analysis ranging from the genetic and neural to the behavioural and social. Two sections cover the clinical ramifications of abuse, and prevention and intervention strategies to most effectively deal with these problems. The Handbook's last section addresses the role of social policy in framing the problem, in addressing it, and explores its potential role in alleviating it.

By offering unique analysis and synthesis of theory, empirical research, and clinical guidance in an up-to-date and unbiased context, this book assists health and social care professionals in understanding the use of drugs and substances of abuse by children and adolescents. A comprehensive reference for health and social care professionals, the book identifies and corrects related false narratives and, with the use of the authors’ combined experience of over 70 years of clinical and academic experience in drug and substance abuse, provides current pharmacotherapeutic and psychotherapeutic approaches for the treatment of alcohol or other dependence or use disorders among children and adolescents. The book also provides a useful reference for identifying brand/trade and street names of the drugs and substances of abuse commonly used by children and adolescents. Also included is a comprehensive, cross-referenced subject index. Clear, comprehensive, accessible, and fully referenced, this book will be an invaluable resource for professionals and students who aim to treat children and adolescents. Child and Adolescent Drug and Substance Abuse is the 19th clinical pharmacology and therapeutic text that the Pagliaros have written over the past 40 years and is the sixth that deals exclusively with drug and substance abuse.

This timely volume explores the possible reasons that young people turn to drugs, the most effective methods to manage those who are afflicted, and ways to educate youth to prevent their initial drug involvement.