Our Mission

The Massachusetts Addiction Prevention Alliance provides educational resources and advocates for sound drug and alcohol policies to protect the health and well-being of all Massachusetts youth. We promote laws and policy that support prevention measures to reduce substance use disorder and addiction.

Our Story

Our organization was founded in December of 2011, when a group of concerned prevention experts from across Massachusetts convened to coordinate a statewide force to reduce youth substance misuse through advocacy and education. Today, almost a decade later, MAPA’s capacity and volunteer membership continues to grow.

Since our inception, over 200 groups and professional leaders have mobilized to support MAPA’s mission. Our growing network represents a broad array of constituencies, including, prevention advocates; public health and safety experts; medical, treatment, and recovery professionals; legislators, municipal and community leaders, business professionals; parents; and, youth mentors.

We are also proud to be aligned with a national network of organizations doing the same type of education and advocacy work in other states across the country. We continue to develop relationships and partnerships with people across all sectors of community to address the problem of drug use and addiction way upstream.

Our Vision

At the Massachusetts Addiction Prevention Alliance, we envision a day when the health and well-being of all Massachusetts youth are central in drug and alcohol policies. We firmly believe that every child has the right to grow up in a drug-free environment.

Our Strategy

Substance Use Disorders are a growing public health problem that impact virtually every family and community in the Commonwealth. The normalization of drug use, binge drinking, and commercial, predatory strategies that drive and promote use of harmful, addictive products continues to be a serious threat to our children. The Massachusetts Addiction Prevention Alliance supports stakeholders working to address the problem with solutions that are grounded in public health science, drug policy research, medical studies and rigorous data analysis.

  • We increase public awareness about prevention science and measures that work to reduce drug use and addiction.
  • We lead statewide and community efforts to support local prevention goals.
  • We work to develop statewide prevention infrastructure that embraces upstream measures to protect youth and families from addiction.
  • We build relationships through collaborations, stakeholder partnerships and community coalitions to drive and reinforce prevention messages and strategies.

Through partnerships and community engagement the Massachusetts Addiction Prevention Alliance is changing dominant, general beliefs that perpetuate drug use behavior and advancing public understanding of straight-forward prevention science. A cornerstone of our work is our ongoing effort to educate leading stakeholders on the problems facing their communities and providing the resources they need to take action and address those problems effectively at the state and local level.