The WHO Programme on Substance Abuse has also established a project to address the needs of street children and other young people in especially difficult circumstances, recognizing their unique risk of substance related harm. The project includes initiatives to train street educators working with young people to deal effectively with substance use problems experienced by these young people. A further project has been designed to assist with the development of culturally appropriate programmes to reduce the harm associated with the use of substances among indigenous populations. However, drinking habits vary in different cultures. In some, traditional patterns of drinking are occasional and celebratory, while in others, alcohol plays a role as part of the diet.
Alcohol can bring both benefit and harm to the individual.
Most of the scientific evidence about the benefit as well as the harm derives from industrialized countries and cultures where alcohol consumption is largely accepted and where diet and lifestyles lend themselves to heart problems. Any possible benefit from alcohol should therefore be considered in its socio-cultural context and cannot be generalized to those cultures and societies where drinking is not acceptable and abstention is the norm. Alcohol consumption has been found to reduce, in certain age groups, the risk of coronary heart disease and ischaemic stroke. Despite this individual benefit, the harm associated with the misuse of alcohol constitutes a major public health problem in both developed and developing countries. According to statistics available to WHO, there are around three quarters of a million alcohol-related deaths each year.