  urlLink Substance Abuse Prevention and Intervention for Students with Disabilities: A Call to Educators. ERIC Digest. This ERIC Digest is by McCombs, Kathryn and Moore, Dennis. It reviews methods that educators can use to prevent disabled students from using illegal drugs. From the ERIC Digest: Youth with disabilities experience a substantially higher substance abuse risk than their nondisabled peers.
In addition to the same risk factors for substance abuse, e.g., peer pressure, media enticements, and stress-as their counterparts in regular education, they also face many disability-specific factors for substance abuse, such as prescribed medications, chronic medical problems, social isolation, co-existing behavioral problems, and disenfranchisement. While educating youth with disabilities in inclusive settings exposes them to positive learning opportunities in the classroom, they also have more exposure to peer pressure for substance use, and at earlier ages. On the other hand, children in contained special education classrooms often have less socialization practice or skills, and may use substances in order to feel accepted by their peers. Compared with adolescents who have never been in classes for learning problems, a significantly greater proportion of students who have been in special education classes live in single-parent and nontraditional households, have a family member with an alcohol or other drug problem, have witnessed or experienced physical abuse, and report a history of sexual abuse and poor emotional health (Borowsky & Resnick, 1998).
All of these contribute to identified risk factors for substance abuse, yet in a recent survey, more than half of special education teachers reported that they conduct prevention activities once a year or less; only 15% conducted such activities at least once a week (Morgan, Genaux, & Likins, 1994). 
