A group of students from different faculties at the University of Alberta has received $137,000 over two years from Health Canada for a smoking prevention program aimed at aboriginal youth.

It's estimated that more than 46 per cent of aboriginal youth smoke cigarettes on a daily basis, more than double the rate of their non-aboriginal counterparts.

The Butt Out program offered at Alberta schools "was not culturally really relevant for the aboriginal students, and we felt that we could maybe possibly step in, or design something that would be more culturally relevant," said Daniel McKennitt, president of the Aboriginal Health Group at the U of A.

Daniel McKennitt heads an interdisciplinary group of students trying to educate aboriginal youth about the appropriate use of tobacco. (CBC)McKennitt gathered up a group of university students from different programs — all of whom have an aboriginal background — and worked out a program that fits First Nations culture.

"We used the advice of elders, we used the advice of aboriginal community members themselves," he said. "Addictions experts from the School of Public Health reviewed our documents to make sure they were still evidence-based."

In 2007, the group ran a program at 15 Edmonton schools involving more than 200 students from Grade 1 to Grade 9.

Latisha Hewton-Backfat is hoping a new smoking prevention program can lower the high rate of tobacco use among aboriginal youth. (CBC) "The program helps youth make their own decision," McKennitt said, "but we want them to make sure they know what tobacco is, how it was used by our ancestors, and how it can be used in the most culturally appropriate way."

"We tell them about all the harmful effects, the obvious stuff like cancer," said Latisha Hewton-Backfat, another member of the Aboriginal Health Group.

"But we also incorporated the other portion, the traditional and ceremonial purpose and how important that is to our culture," she said.

"Traditional tobacco, compared to the cigarette tobacco of today, it's actually grown from a different plant and a different species. The traditional tobacco that is smoked is actually not inhaled," McKennitt said.

The program is being funded through Health Canada's Federal Tobacco Control Strategy.

Aboriginal post-secondary students will be trained in a special curriculum and then take what they learn to gatherings of aboriginal youth in schools across northern Alberta.