Center for Substance Abuse Prevention

The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CS AP) is the lead federal agency responsible for improving the quality and accessibility of substance abuse prevention services. The CSAP replaced the Office for Substance Abuse Prevention (OSAP), which was established by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 as part of the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health [Page 158]Administration (ADAMHA) under the Department of Health and Human Services. When the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) replaced ADAMHA, through reorganization in 1992, OSAP became the CSAP.

The general mission of the CSAP is to provide national leadership for policies, programs, and services to prevent the onset of illicit drug use and underage alcohol and tobacco use and to reduce the negative consequences of substance use. It is largely by means of the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant as well as an array of discretionary grants that the CSAP is able to accomplish its mission.

The organizational structure of the CSAP consists of the Office of the Director, the Office of Program Analysis and Coordination, and four major divisions. The respective divisions of the CSAP are the Division of State and Community Assistance, the Division of Knowledge Application and Systems Improvement, the Division of Prevention Education and Dissemination, and the Division of Workplace Programs.

The CSAP requires that only effective, evidence-based programs be funded. Accordingly, CSAP synthesizes peer reviewed prevention research such as through its Prevention Enhancement Protocols System and its National Center for the Advancement of Prevention, both of which are intended to review and synthesize prevention research and to make it more usable and understandable for practitioners and policymakers. The CSAP uses a five-step strategic prevention framework process consisting of assessment, capacity, planning, implementation, and evaluation to achieve its goals of preventing substance abuse.

The CSAP administers the prevention portion of the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant. By law, 20% of the funds in the block grant (nearly $1.8 billion in F Y 2008) must be devoted to prevention. This money is distributed to states, which in turn fund community prevention efforts. The CSAP ensures that these funds are used to support evidence-based prevention and that data on the effectiveness of prevention programs and strategies are gathered.

Beginning in 1990, broad based community prevention initiatives were begun with the awarding of 95 Community Partnership Demonstration Program grants. CSAP awarded 13 demonstration grants in 1994 for female adolescent programs to create gender specific strategies to decrease substance abuse. In 1995, the CSAP awarded 16 replication demonstration program grants that served 24 states. Beginning in 2004, the CSAP has been awarding State Incentive Grants from SAMHSA as part of a systematic federal effort intended to support prevention capacity and infrastructure at the state and community levels. Also beginning in 2004, the Drug Free Communities (DFC) grants program was moved to CSAP; this program provides grants of up to $100,000 to community coalitions that develop initiatives to prevent youth alcohol, tobacco, illicit drug, and inhalant abuse. These DFC grants allow community coalitions to improve prevention efforts through greater com-munitywide coordination, as well as by encouraging citizen participation in substance abuse prevention efforts and by disseminating information on effective prevention programs.

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