Encouraging a ‘generational shift’ in the UKs relationship with drugs. A commentary on the new UK drug strategy. What can be achieved with drug prevention?

A new and significant expansion of the focus of activity to include the general population of PWUD ‘recreationally’ and inclusion of a headline target of a 30-year low in drug prevalence can only be achieved through prevention work. Existing evidence-based programmes and interventions are unlikely to have the scale and impact required to achieve this, but natural cycles of drug use may partly lead to headline success regardless of this. New thinking about prevention is required that explicitly embeds prevention across multiple domains, and that specifically considers the aetiology of drug use and its multiple complex determinants.