Twenty years ago, Iceland had one of the highest rates of youth drug and alcohol consumption in Europe.

Now, the country ranks as one of the lowest for youth drug and alcohol rates. And it's thanks to an evidence-based preventative model that will soon be rolled out in Australia.

The Alcohol and Drug Foundation has announced it will trial the Planet Youth program in ten Australian locations over the next two-and-a-half years.

The model combines global research findings and local observations from within communities to find out the causes of drug and alcohol abuse.

Between 1998 and 2018, the percentage of Iceland's year ten students who had been drunk in the past 30 days fell from 42 per cent to just five per cent.

Daily cigarette smokers in the same age group dropped from 23 per cent to two per cent, and the number of year ten students who used cannabis once or more in their lifetime dropped from 17 per cent to six per cent.

Director of Planet Youth, Jon Sigfusson, said the program works because it's a collaborative method between parents, young people, policy makers and researchers.

"Before '98, we were educating young children. Education is fine, but that alone doesn't work," he told Hack.

"Young people are clever, we don't need to tell them drugs are dangerous. We turned this around and started educating parents - the most important thing - and creating a lot of activities for children and young people."

How does it work?

One of the biggest risk factors for substance abuse by young people is boredom, says Jon.

So councils and governments, on the advice of Planet Youth, introduced subsidised extracurricular activities for youth to get involved in after school and in their free time.

Young people in Iceland now have access to a whole range of extracurricular activities, such as sport, art, music, "whatever they want to do".

"You have to change the environment of young people so they are at less risk of starting those bad activities," said Jon.

"We tried to strengthen preventive factors and weaken risk factors.

"Preventative factors such as teaching parents and making sure young people have opportunities to use their free time.

"Risk factors we saw, for example, were hanging out late at night."

So, a law was also passed prohibiting children aged between 13 and 16 from being outside after 10pm in winter and midnight in summer.

"Children who were bullied were more likely to start using drugs, so we put a lot of effort into making children feel better at school," said Jon.

Children and families were also given a "leisure card", loaded with 450 euros (about $650 Australian dollars) to cover the cost of extracurricular activities.

Why does it work?

Jon says there's three things that make the model work: being evidence-based, using a community approach and maintaining a collaborative effort.

"Always in the environment of young people you have to know what you're doing," he said.

"Always work in different communities, don't look at the whole country at the same time."

Working with a range of communities means the model is easily adaptable; more than 20 countries are now using Planet Youth in over 100 communities.

The model will be rolled out in Australia through the existing Local Drug Action Team Program, which is funded under the Australian Government's National Ice Action Strategy and managed by the Alcohol and Drug Foundation.

The 10 locations the trials will run in are:

Limestone Coast (SA)

Murray Bridge (SA)

Glenorchy (TAS)

Huon Valley (TAS)

Hepburn (VIC)

Northern Mallee (VIC)

Wycheproof/Sea Lake (VIC)

Blue Mountains (NSW)

Lithgow (NSW)

Marrickville (NSW)

Alcohol and Drug Foundation CEO, Dr Erin Lalor, said the trials are a long-term investment in community-led prevention.

"The Local Drug Action Teams taking part in the trial have been selected for their strong local partnerships and commitment to preventing alcohol and drug-related harms," Dr Lalor said.

"The Planet Youth trial in Australia will be tailored to the unique needs of the different communities in the pilot sites."