Dear Colleagues:

On behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, welcome to the 2nd National Conference on Drug Abuse Prevention Research: A Progress Update. We are especially pleased to be cosponsoring this important event with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

This promises to be an engaging and informative conference. Significant strides have been made in drug prevention research in the past decade. As researchers continue to unravel the overall complexity of drug abuse and addiction, they are also emerging with a clearer understanding of the factors that put children at risk for later drug use. This, in turn, has enabled prevention researchers to develop interventions that are showing some very promising positive outcomes. The science findings that will be showcased over the next two days will provide communities with new tools and ideas to confront and respond to drug abuse and its related health consequences.

Although the science has come quite a distance, much more remains to be done to ensure that evidence-based approaches to drug abuse prevention can be easily and readily adapted by all communities across the country. It is our Foundation's hope that the state-of-the-art knowledge that emerges from this conference will be able to be used in real-life settings. We also hope that this event ignites new and exciting directions for tomorrow's research endeavors that, ultimately, will improve the health and health care of all Americans.

Sincerely,

Steven A. Schroeder, M.D.
President and CEO