Thank you so much for raising that, Doctor.
You're absolutely right. Look at how HIV/AIDS and COVID were brought under control. It was through reducing new cases. We are not doing enough of that with addiction.
The commission recommended focusing particularly on kids in low-income environments and on generic investments in their well-being. These would be things like early education programs, nurse-family partnerships that help low-income parents-to-be with their first experience of birth and early child raising, and Communities That Care, which is a very well-studied program for kids a bit older, usually around 11, 12 or 13. It teaches them things like how to recognize and manage their own emotions, connect positively to other kids and connect to positive community organizations, whatever they may be—cultural, religious, artistic or athletic—which provide them with alternatives to substance use.
The evidence in those studies, which is very strong, shows that kids who get those investments not only have lower rates of drug, alcohol and tobacco use but are also more likely to stay in school. They're more likely to go to university someday. They're less likely to get involved in crime. They're less likely to be depressed. Making those investments—again, particularly for children who are growing up in adverse environments—is very critical, unless we all want to be having the same conversation 10 years from now, which I'm sure we don't.
The way we get out of that is through those preventive investments.