Drug (narcotic substance) abuse among young people is one of the most important medical and social problems. Sociological and sociohygienic studies have shown the specificity of the student environment in terms of the factors of drug addiction. Objective — to get the evidence base about the effectiveness of various forms of preventive work among students and to develop evidence-based guidelines for its regulation. Subject and methods. A representative sample of 456 students aged 18 to 21 years was surveyed. The relationship between the participation in preventive measures (a factorial sign) and the formation of objective ideas about drug harms and the possibilities of narcology (a meaningful sign) was studied by calculating the relative risk and its confidence interval. Results. The results of the study give grounds for all-round lectures given by physicians for the basic anti-drug training of all-specialty students and for severe restrictions (up to the introduction of legal prohibitions) on the involvement of young people in the production of anti-drug campaign materials and in discussions, which enable the expression of starkly different views on narcotizing drugs or on the revision of the legal status of the latter. A demonstration of patients from narcology clinics to students and performances of the patients, including the treated ones, before the young, should be organized only as a part of a special educational process. There is evidence for a wide range of topic training of specialists and volunteers, the administrators of preventive measures.