rogram in recent past years. There may be differences in the ways schools present alcohol/drug education, and the length and intensity of programs may have differing effects on students. Another important difference may be the main message that students perceive in their education programs. In an effort to better understand the possible impact of educational efforts, all students, regardless of whether they reported receiving alcohol/drug education in the current school year, were asked to identify the main message about alcohol they remember from school alcohol/drug education programs. In a telephone survey, the measure of the main message perceived from an educational program is, of necessity, a simple one and cannot capture important aspects of the message such as the context in which it is conveyed (e.g., a physiological context). The Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act mandates a "wrong and harmful" message in alcohol/drug prevention programs, but schools may include more than one message, and students may hear most or all of them. Also, it should be noted that the measure is of students' perceptions of the main message. This study does not capture schools' practices with regard to the main message they are trying to convey.Because drugs other than alcohol are illegal, it was presumed that a strict "no use" message for these substances would be imparted by educators and heard clearly by students. However, alcohol use, while illegal for minors, is not illegal for adults, and the messages about alcohol perceived by students may vary. Twenty-six percent of 6th through 12 grade students chose the message "do not drink" as the main message they heard in school alcohol/drug education programs, while 62 percent reported the main message was "do not drink and drive," and 12 percent said they received another main message, including "do not drink until you are legally old enough," "do not drink too much," or an unspecified messag...
