Ecstasy, methamphetamine, DXM, LSD, stimulants, sedatives, steroids - these are some of the “party drugs” passed around in dance clubs, shared at all-night raves, and exchanged at weekend music festivals. Some users report feelings of euphoria and being disconnected from reality; users may be attracted to the pseudo-cool factor among peers and sharing the experience with others.  However, negative effects can be severe – over-hydration, dangerously high body temperature, insomnia, seizures, paranoia, cardiac rhythm abnormalities, flashbacks that may last for months (a well-documented consequence of LSD use), and liver damage, to name a few. While data show that most club drugs have low prevalence of use among teens, it is important to note that, for most of these substances, use typically doubles and triples between 8^th and 12^th grade.[1]

To help get the word out on the dangers of these substances, Project ALERT has recently published its newest supplemental guide, Club and Other Drugs: Information for Educators and Youth. This replaces the Prescription and OTC Drug supplement and the previous version of the Club Drugs supplement. Please see our Heroin and Other Opioids supplement for information on prescription opiates. We recommend that you share this and our other guides on marijuana, e-cigarettes, and heroin/opioids with your students, as well as set aside some class discussion time. Our supplemental drug guides are great resources of information and are useful take-home tools for teens. As with our other guides, we kept the language at a middle-school comprehension level so that young minds could understand basic concepts and retain important information.

We'd love to hear from you

If you’ve received an email or postcard about our Project ALERT State of the Program survey, there is still time to respond! We really depend upon feedback to continually improve the curriculum, whether or not you’re using the program.  Check out the link (and the great prizes) below! Deadline to complete the survey is May 15^th!

New research opportunity

If you are a teacher, prevention education specialist, principal, or other administrator at a middle school in California, Colorado, or South Carolina, and are interested in partnering on a research project, please contact us. Your school will receive enhanced support (and monetary incentives) to implement Project ALERT. We are looking for schools to partner with regardless of whether the school is currently using the program or not. Email us at projectalert@rand.org for more information.

Get your cameras and iPhones rolling!

Finally, our first-ever video contest is in full swing. Lindsey and the gang are awaiting your take on their timeless story of teen angst and peer pressure. See full contest information on our web site. But don’t delay - the deadline for the video contest submissions is May 15^th!

As always, we thank our 30,000+ community partners for supporting Project ALERT!

RAND is conducting a comprehensive review of Project ALERT to see how the program can be enhanced to meet the needs of educators and students in today’s world. But to do this, we need input from community partners like you!  Your opinions, regardless of whether you are using the program, are very important in order to continue to keep Project ALERT relevant and effective.

Don’t miss this opportunity to let your voice be heard.  The survey only takes about 5-10 minutes.

To show our appreciation:

• Your school will be entered into a drawing to win one of 5 $500 Amazon gift cards (one entry per school)

• You (yes you - the one filling out the survey) will be entered into a separate drawing to win one of 10 $50 Amazon gift cards (one entry per instructor)

• Twelve runner-up schools will receive their choice of a full-color 24 x 36 Project ALERT poster

Take the Project ALERT State of the Program survey.

Please forward the survey link to your colleagues - https://goo.gl/geQ0JU.  Contact us at 1.800.ALERT.10 or projectalert@rand.org if you have any questions.

Thank you for your continued support of Project ALERT!

We’ve received some excellent submissions for the Lindsey’s Choice video contest.  Thank you, future Hollywood screenwriters!  We’re anxious to see your finished results!

Here are some responses to contest questions we’ve received:

• Does it have to be about social pressures to smoke?  Yes. Future contests will have different themes.

• Can the characters have different names?  Yes, but Lindsey stays Lindsey.

• Does it have to be at a movie theater or can we use another venue?  Change it up!  Just use a location where teens hang out – a coffee shop, a school, a dance (just not a “rave”)

We’ve extended the deadline to May 15, 2017. Can you think of a more awesome end-of-a-long-school-year project for your students?  We can't.

Submission forms, contest guidelines, and prize information can be found here. 

Project ALERT continues its honored status of being recognized by the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP) from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Project ALERT received the highest marks possible during the NREPP’s first review of the program in 2008, but the NREPP has since revised their criteria to make it clearer for which substance use and mental health outcomes the reviewed programs are most effective in preventing or treating. These more stringent criteria can help educators choose which drug prevention programs have research evidence supporting effectiveness for the outcomes the educators are interested in addressing at their schools. The new criteria rate studies of programs based on four dimensions:

(1) rigor (i.e., the strength of the study methodology),

(2) effect sizes (i.e., a measure of whether a program had any impact on outcomes and how big that effect was),

(3) program fidelity (i.e., a determination of whether the program was delivered as designed), and

(4) conceptual framework (i.e., how clearly articulated were the program’s components).

Using these dimensions, programs are now rated as having:

(a) effective evidence,

(b) promising evidence

(c) ineffective evidence, or

(d) inconclusive evidence for specific outcomes.

Between 2015 and 2017, Project ALERT was classified as a “legacy program,” which means it was an evidence-based program that had yet to be reviewed with the new NREPP criteria established in 2015. In late 2016, the program was reviewed using the updated NREPP review methodology (i.e., effective, promising, ineffective, or inconclusive for specific outcomes). This review assigned Project ALERT a “promising evidence rating” for (1) alcohol use and disorders, (2) cannabis use and disorders, (3) tobacco use and disorders, and (4) knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about substance use, and an “ineffective evidence rating” for (5) inhalant use and disorders. These ratings were reached with reviews of the original RAND randomized controlled trials of Project ALERT and an independent randomized controlled trial of the program with sixth graders across 21 school districts in 11 states. According to NREPP, a promising rating indicates, that “the evaluation evidence has sufficient methodological rigor, and the short-term effect on this outcome is likely to be favorable. More specifically, the short-term effect favors the intervention group and the size of the effect is likely to be substantial.”

See Project ALERT’s NREPP profile here.

By some estimates, more than 2,000 drug prevention curricula are found in school classrooms and resource libraries. However, only a handful have undergone the kind of comprehensive testing that Project ALERT has, and only a small number of programs have received national recognition for their scientific soundness. This distinction clarifies and sustains the overall value of the Project ALERT program.

Is your school wired?  We sure hope so - it is 2017.  How reliable is your organization’s Internet connection?  If it’s either spotty or non-existent, we want to remind readers that all of the videos that accompany many of the core and booster lessons are now available via iTunes Podcast.  If the lack of online access in your teaching setting has been an issue, you now have an additional way to download and store video content on personal and classroom computers.  And in true Project ALERT style, the videos are available at no charge to users!

Getting Started (you will need online access to begin)

You will need online access to start the process, and you will have the choice either to stream the videos online or download the videos to your iTunes library for offline viewing. Once you download and save the videos, and as long as you keep a version of iTunes on your computer, online access will not be needed to play the videos. 

• If you already have an Apple ID and an iTunes account, you can log in and go straight to our Podcast page

• If you do not already have it, please follow this link to download iTunes onto your computer. If you do not have an Apple ID, it takes just a few minutes to create one.  Initially, you will need to enter a credit card when you create your profile, but after your account is set up, you can opt to edit or remove your credit card information by following the instructions on this page.

Locating, Viewing (or “Streaming”), and Downloading the Videos in iTunes

Initially, you will need Internet access to either view (“stream”) and/or download the videos.

• Follow this link to the Project ALERT iTunes Podcast

• When the Podcast page appears, click on the blue “View in iTunes” button

• The Podcast will appear in iTunes, displaying the 16 videos you can either view or download

• To stream a video, hover your cursor over title of the video you want; a blue arrow will appear to the left of the title; simply click on the arrow to watch/stream the video.

• To download and save a video, click on the “Get” button in the far right column (click on the actual word “Get” and not on the little drop-down arrow next to it)

• The video(s) will download and become a permanent part of your own iTunes library

Playing Downloaded and Saved Videos

·    Next time you’re teaching one of the lessons in a setting without online access:

• Launch iTunes on your computer

• Click on Podcasts in the left navigation bar of your iTunes library

• Select the video(s) that accompany a particular lesson that you’d like to show

It’s that easy!  We encourage you to give it a try, and send us some feedback to let us know how it’s going.

“Old School” Methods Are Still Available

If you prefer, the lesson videos are still available for online streaming via the Project ALERT website, and our You Tube page.  

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