A Drug Prevention Strategy for Canada’s Youth
Illicit drug use is a significant problem with an estimated cost of $8.2 billion a year to Canadian society. Sixty percent of illicit drug users are 15 to 24 years old and the average age of first use of illicit drugs is as young as 11 among some groups of high risk youth.
To address this issue, CCSA developed a five-year, $10-million national drug prevention initiative, A Drug Prevention Strategy for Canada’s Youth. This Strategy—which is part of the federal government’s National Anti-Drug Strategy—aims to reduce illicit drug use by Canadian youth between the ages of 10 to 24.
The Strategy uses three complementary approaches to address youth substance abuse:
1. Build and Sustain a Media/Youth Consortium – to develop and deliver effective, consistent, evidence-based drug prevention messages to engage, educate and empower Canadian youth. Developing initiatives that provide them with the information they need to make informed and responsible choices about illicit drugs and their health in general. The first initiatives developed by this approach include:
Xperiment.ca—CCSA’s award-winning drug-prevention website for 
Canadian youth ages 10 to 24—which was designed as a safe place for youth to virtually experiment with drugs to learn about their effects.
2. Create a Portfolio of Canadian Prevention Standards and Guidelines for youth substance abuse prevention programming in schools, community and families contexts. This comprehensive resource is comprised of the following documents:
3. Form and maintain sustainable partnerships with other key organizations to support the work of the Strategy and extend its reach. Under this approach the National Advisory Group on Youth Substance Abuse Prevention (YSAP) was established to advise on the direction of the Strategy and its initiatives and also to address the National Framework youth priority.
The Strategy is continually evaluated by both internal and external evaluation experts to ensure it is meeting expected outcomes. CCSA is accountable to Health Canada under the Drug Strategy Community Initiatives Fund (DSCIF) and reports quarterly on the Strategy’s progress.