Despite the implementation of various info-communication interventions aimed at protecting the Ivorian population against drug use, Côte d’Ivoire has gone from being a country of transit and trafficking to one of high drug consumption. This consumption concerns mainly young people living in urban areas (AIP, 20 August 2018). The present study, conducted through mixed methods and based on the theory of information processing and the socio-ecological model, makes it possible to identify the factors that explain this high level of drug consumption by young people living in urban areas, in spite of these preventive communication actions. It emerges that young urban dwellers have very little exposure to the awareness-raising activities undertaken by formal drug prevention structures. This is due to the fact that the communication channels and media most used by the majority of these young people, especially those who do not use drugs, are generally ignored by these structures during their info-communication activities. Furthermore, the biological parents of young non-drug users and drug users present in the smoking rooms, who are the primary social actors capable of positively influencing their attitudes and practices, are also ignored or inadequately integrated into awareness-raising activities against drug use. The study therefore recommends prioritising ICTs and television on the one hand, and the biological parents of these young people on the other, as the main info-communication media and actors in awareness-raising and anti-drug education activities targeting them.