Substance Use Prevention

Healthy Oxford Hills works with the University of New England and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention to prevent and reduce misuse of alcohol, marijuana, and prescription drugs. Healthy Oxford Hills provides education, training, technical assistance, tools, and resources to prevent misuse of these substances among youth and young adults.

One approach to prevent prescription drug misuse is to prevent individuals from getting access to prescription drugs that have not been prescribed to them. Healthy Oxford Hills promotes storage and disposal of prescription medicines and twice a year we work with local law enforcement on Medicine Take Back Day. This is a National initiative that takes place in April and October. However, we also want Mainers to properly dispose of their medicines throughout the year at safe medication disposal sites. These sites include

  • Oxford Police Department
  • Oxford County Sheriff’s Office
  • Paris Police Station
  • Norway Police Station
  • Walgreen’s Pharmacy (Norway)

Promotion of proper storage of marijuana is also an important strategy to help reduce marijuana misuse, especially among children and young adults.

Other strategies to prevent substance misuse include Responsible Beverage Service trainings, Prime for Life programming, dissemination of printed materials, and social media campaigns.