The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine's Adam Fletcher and Chris Bonell make the claim in a paper published in PPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research's quarterly journal.
The lecturers call for greater investment in detached youth work, which they say is far more effective in tackling drug and alcohol abuse among young people.
"Youth centres and projects bringing together young people can introduce them to new peers, therefore they may become more involved with, and influenced by, peers engaged in frequent and heavy drug and alcohol use," they write.
"The detached model avoids the potentially harmful social network effects associated with centre-based youth work and other projects that aggregate together ‘high-risk' individuals and that can potentially introduce young people to a new network of drug-using peers."
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