Reflections from a Career in Prevention

Reflections from a Career in Prevention

-Rich Lucey

I was honored and blessed to have a career spanning more than three decades working at state and federal government agencies, focused on preventing alcohol and drug misuse among youth and young adults, specifically college students. That wasn’t the career I initially envisioned for myself. For as long as I can remember, I dreamed of performing on Broadway, stemming from my days as a theater major in college. But life’s journey has many twists and turns. Instead of a stage on the Great White Way, my career gave me a different stage, one that allowed me to speak on an issue I am passionate about – preventing drug use and misuse among college students.

Having recently retired from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Community Outreach and Prevention Support Section, it has given me a lot of time to reflect on my time in the prevention space, the highs and lows, the laughs and tears, and the many friendships. I have also given a lot of thought to six key takeaways to share with you, in hopes you take them to heart as you continue your work in preventing drug use and misuse, regardless of your target populations and settings.

1. There are ebbs and flows in prevention.

Buckle your seatbelts and always keep your hands inside the ride because working in the prevention field can often feel like riding a roller coaster (which I am not a fan of, by the way). There were times when grant funding was abundant for colleges and universities to support their prevention efforts, and there were times that budget constraints made such funding almost nonexistent. There were times when national training and technical assistance centers – whether for colleges and universities or states and communities – ceased operations due to budget shortfalls or agency leadership decisions. There was a time when prevention was squarely in the spotlight when a National Prevention Strategy was published in June 2011 and Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health, a landmark publication released in November 2016. And currently we continue to face one of the deadliest drug crises in our nation’s history, due to counterfeit pills and illicit fentanyl and their toll on individuals, families, and communities.

2. Don’t look for the “one size fits all” program.

Prevention is not a cookie-cutter process. It never has been nor will it ever be a “one size fits all” process. Admittedly, finding the right balance between adapting a prevention program to meet local needs while being true to the fidelity of the program’s design is tricky. Be aware that any time you change or adapt a prevention program from how it was originally designed – for example, cutting a 10-hour program down to 2 hours – you might compromise the outcomes. If possible, work with the program’s developer when you want to make adaptations to it. Or at the very least, contact someone with evaluation expertise to talk through what you want to do. Lastly, just because a prevention strategy or program was successful at ABC University, that doesn’t mean it will be met with the same success at XYZ College. It is critically important for prevention professionals to carefully select the approach they want to take based on what the data are telling them about their students’ drug use rates, including not only what they are using, but where they are using and why. Also, be sure your campus has the capacity (e.g., funds, staffing, expertise) to implement the prevention approach you identified, and if it doesn’t, determine what steps must be taken to help ensure you and your prevention partners build that capacity appropriately.

3. People support what they helped to create.

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Whenever I bring up that line in a workshop presentation or keynote, it usually invokes laughter. It’s an age-old punch line, unfortunately, either because people don’t trust government or they’ve had a not-so-great experience with government. From my time as a government employee interacting with professionals in the prevention field, usually distrust or skepticism comes from an instance when the government enters the picture, acts like an expert on a local issue, and has a ready-made solution for it. But those instances often fall flat, mainly because the government truly doesn’t fully understand the local issue and their so-called solution wasn’t developed with any input from the community members. When members of a college or university community, as well as members of the surrounding community, help to develop a response to an issue, such as underage drinking, marijuana use, or prescription drug misuse, they are more likely to support those strategies moving forward. Granted, having assistance from state and federal government can be truly beneficial, but government employees, as well as contractors, must take note that prevention efforts will exponentially succeed with the community’s buy-in and support. This naturally leads into my next takeaway.

4. Local people solve local problems best.

Quick geography lesson – my home state of New York is large. When people hear New York, they immediately think of “the city” (i.e., New York City) as we natives call it. But there is a vast amount of land that makes up the state, including the Adirondack Mountains, the Catskills, the Southern Tier, our border with Canada, and Long Island. One of the great pleasures I had during my tenure overseeing New York State’s efforts to prevent alcohol and drug use among college students was coordinating the Statewide College Consortia Steering Committee. This group consisted of representatives from each of the state’s 10 regional college coalitions and they provided advice and guidance to my agency as we developed prevention resources for the state’s 242 colleges and universities. One thing I quickly learned was that, while an issue such as underage drinking or impaired driving was common across the state, geographic differences played a big role in how a regional consortium addressed the issue. For instance, colleges and universities in New York City, Plattsburgh, and Syracuse all identified underage drinking as an issue. But their responses to it had to be locally derived because of geography and other factors. For instance, schools far up in the Adirondack Mountains had to contend with not only underage drinking but also drinking and driving due to the vast rural nature of the state. Schools in New York City had to contend with the “city that never sleeps” mentality, meaning parties at which alcohol and other drugs were available occurred any night of the week, not just on Friday and Saturday nights. So while members of the statewide steering committee could and did learn from each other, the most effective solutions were homegrown to a large degree, as local campus and community members developed and implemented local solutions for local issues.

5. Hone your craft. In other words, do your homework.

I have learned many things working 35+ years in this field. But the thing that sticks with me most is that prevention science is not finite. It is always evolving, which brings about new lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid. As a result, we have a responsibility to continue to hone our craft and be lifelong learners in the prevention space. The “hone your craft” mantra was instilled in me by my mentor Fran Harding, whom I had the pleasure of working for twice – once in New York State and then again during her tenure as director of the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. I continue to emphasize the importance of honing your craft during my various workshops and speeches. Since Sean Fearns, my supervisor at DEA, was fond of saying it’s not enough to tell people to do something, you need to provide action steps to help them along the way, here is the advice I give to people about honing their craft. Put a 30- to 60-minute standing meeting on your calendar each week. The meeting participant is you. That’s right, a meeting with yourself to read a journal article or blog post, watch or listen to a prevention-related podcast (hint, hint – there’s one called Prevention Profiles: Take Five on www.campusdrugprevention.gov), or participate in a webinar or online discussion. And here’s where the tough love enters the picture – don’t cancel this meeting with yourself (because it’s too easy to do that). If you keep this weekly meeting with yourself, you will have taken advantage of 52 opportunities throughout the year to hone your craft and be a lifelong learner in this ever-evolving field.

6. Be purposeful, intentional, and strategic.

Prevention is not random. Let me repeat that – prevention is not random. Prevention needs to be intentional; it needs to be purposeful; it needs to be strategic. Remember that hope is not a plan. And I know that one of the struggles we face in prevention is impatience. There is pressure from many fronts to produce results quickly. Because of that, staff might rush to replicate programs and policies being used elsewhere, even when not enough information is available to know if those programs/policies are a good match for the school or community or can produce favorable outcomes. But if we are to make measurable differences in preventing alcohol and drug use and misuse among college students, then strategic planning must be at the centerpiece of our efforts. I am certain (okay, hopeful) that being strategic is already part of your plan. You are being strategic in determining your timeline (i.e., when your efforts take place), you are being strategic in your direction (i.e., where you want your efforts to lead you), and you are being strategic in your ideas (i.e., what you want to accomplish). The concept of being purposeful was so important to DEA that it became the backbone of the Prevention with Purpose strategic planning guide and its 12 supplemental resources.

There you have it. Six lessons I have learned over the course of a rich and fulfilling career working hard to prevent alcohol and drug use and misuse in schools and communities. I wish you all the best in your prevention efforts, and remember to be purposeful, intentional, and strategic.

Rich Lucey, currently serving as an independent consultant, has more than 35 years of experience at the state and federal government levels working to prevent alcohol and drug use and misuse among youth and young adults, especially college students. He most recently served as a senior prevention program manager in the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Community Outreach and Prevention Support Section, where he planned and executed educational and public information programs, evaluated program goals and outcomes, and served as an advisor to the Section Chief and other DEA officials on drug misuse prevention and education programs. Rich also served as special assistant to the director for the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention and worked as an education program specialist in the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. In 2024, Rich was awarded the National Prevention Network's Award of Excellence at their annual conference in recognition of his national efforts to prevent drug use. In 2026, NASPA—Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education recognized Rich for his outstanding service and dedication to the field of prevention in higher education.