Middle years students will receive counseling on how to say no to drugs when it really counts thanks to a pilot project through Addictions Foundation of Manitoba and Portage la Prairie School Division.

The division's drug awareness project, started last September, promises that by the end of this school year, every Grade 7 and 8 student in Portage and Oakville will have gone through an extensive drug and alcohol prevention program.

The idea for the project came from the results of a survey conducted by the Rural and Northern Youth Intervention Strategy that studied drug and alcohol use in communities such as Portage.

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