A Social Approach to Reduce Drugs and Psychedelics Demand and Prevent Drug Dependence by Emphasizing the Role of Social Participation

Dependence on the substance as a factor contributing to the impairment of individual and social health imposes numerous damages to societies in different areas including personal, family, health, cultural, social, and economic aspects. It is necessary to take counter actions to deal with using drugs and psychedelics. As a dynamic, alive, cheerful and moving system, society has unlimited capacities and potentials that can be used to prevent drug dependence. Therefore, the socialization of the struggle against drugs is essential. The purpose of this article was to review the social approach to cope with drug use, with an emphasis on the role of social participation. So, firstly, the socialization approach to struggle against drugs was explained and then the role of social participation and a review of the research literature, and finally the discussion and conclusions and suggestions were discussed. Prevention is one of the most important pillars to cope with drug use and its dependence. In other words, attention to the prevention approach is always better than treatment. Prevention can be performed in different foci of societies. Encouragement of prevention in the community level and great participation of the various strata of the community play an effective role to cope with drugs. The social approach in preventing drug dependence is in fact "the national development" and is based on "participation". Theoretical and research evidence on the role of social participation in the prevention of drug dependence is very limited, and the need for increasing knowledge and research in this regard is very necessary. Existing research evidence also denotes the importance of social participation in preventing a variety of social harms, especially drug dependence. In sum, it can be said that "social participation" plays a very important role in "the socialization to cope with drug use" and by using a social approach to cope with drug use, with an emphasis on social participation, one can prevent drug dependence and harms stemmed from it.