Substance Use and Addiction

“Just say no” is a limited frame for addressing issues of substance use and addiction. Advocates need to tell a different story.

Substance use outreach and advocacy work can be derailed by the public belief in the role of individual choice and willpower. FrameWorks’ research helps widen the lens on substance use issues.

Some frame shifts are straightforward—like naming the range of substances that may harm youth, rather than relying on the phrase “drugs and alcohol.” Other strategies seek to reshape the overall narrative, moving from a story about the scope of the problem to society’s responsibility to address it.

Explore frames that can help to build support for youth prevention, explain early intervention, translate key findings from the science of addiction, and more.

Featured Work

External article

Reframing America’s Opioid Epidemic to Find Solutions

Framing the opioid epidemic as a crisis and an individual problem obscures the power of prevention and society’s role in promoting it.

Report

Reframing Adolescent Substance Use and its Prevention: A Communications Playbook

Welcome to the Reframing Adolescent Substance Use and Its Prevention playbook, a step-by-step guide to using evidence-based framing strategies to communicate about adolescent substance use.

Report

Turning Down the Heat on Adolescent Substance Use: Findings from Reframing Research

This report outlines the findings from a series of interrelated investigations aimed at identifying framing tools and techniques capable of elevating the public discussion. The purpose of this...

Showing 13 – 18 of 18

Frame Testing Recommendations

Talking About Addiction

This strategic guide synthesizes the implications of studies into how people think about addiction.

Report

Can Redirecting Values Increase Support for Addiction Policies and Related Issues

This report summarizes the findings of a quantitative experiment that tested thousands of Canadians attitudes and support for policies when exposed to values.

Report

How to Talk About Children’s Mental Health: A FrameWorks MessageMemo

This MessageMemo provides advocates with a communications map for improving the public's understanding of children's mental health and the value of solutions.

Report

Changing Addiction from a “Sin Problem”: Peer Discourse Sessions on Addiction in Alberta

This research maps the public discourse that shapes how Albertans reason about issues of addiction and treatments that are seen as appropriate and effective.

Report

Rounding Up the Associations: How Perceptions of Addiction are Recruited

This report maps the gaps between how Albertans think and experts talk about the science of addiction.

Report

Determinism Leavened by Will Power: The Challenge of Closing the Gaps Between the Public and Expert Explanations of Gene-Environment Interaction

Epigenetics has important implications for health policy - but lay perceptions of genetics are out of step with current science. This study pinpoints the gaps.