The goal of this paper is to review the school-based drugs misuse prevention programs, and to establish a connection with the "health promotion" and "health promoting school" concepts, in an attempt to create a new proposal. There are several models of preventive intervention, but the results of its evaluations show little improvement. The most hopeful programs imply in giving up the restrict focus of prevention (of a specific disease) to adopt the health promotion concept. The application of the health promotion concept in the school environment resulted in the health promoting school concept, which can be defined as a school that has an organized set of policies, procedures, activities, and structures, designed to protect and promote the health and well-being of all school community members. The "harm reduction" proposal, as a prevention strategy, come together the health promoting school proposal, and in this way our proposal is a set of health promotion actions that includes: wider and progressive goals; breaking the manichaeism; inclusive actions; community partnerships including many sectors of society; youth autonomy; and the focus on the person in all its complexity, not only on the substance use or misuse. This proposal aims all students, regardless if they had or not already tried or they still are using any psychoactive substance.
Education; Prevention; Harm reduction; Substance-related disorders; Health promoting school