newgrowerNY

The Federal anti-drug ad campaign yields only disappointing results
03.12.07|Fort Wayne

Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Souder recently took to the airwaves to defend one of the Bush administration’s sacred cows: the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.
If you’ve had access to a television or a newspaper over the past few years, you’re familiar with the federal ad campaign. It’s the one that’s spent over $2 billion since 1998 to produce public-service announcements implying that smoking pot supports al-Qaida and may make you pregnant, among other dubious anti-drug messages.

So dubious, in fact, that the campaign has flopped miserably among its target audience. Of course, this fact matters not to the White House, which recently demanded $130 million to run the ads through 2008 – a 31 percent increase over current funding levels.

Speaking recently with MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson, Souder vehemently defended the administration’s decision to increase spending for the much-maligned campaign, stating, “The fact is, I believe in results and conservatives believe in results.” That said, the results couldn’t be any worse.

Consider this:

- A 2002 review by the research firm Westat Inc. and the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania found “no statistically significant decline in marijuana use or improvement in beliefs and attitudes about marijuana use” attributable to the media campaign. Authors of the report – which was sponsored by the federal government – later told Congress that the negative results were among the worst in the history of large-scale public communication campaigns.

- A 2003 performance assessment by the White House Office of Management and Budget criticized the Media Campaign for failing to achieve any tangible goals or objectives. There exists “no evidence that paid media messages have a direct effect on youth drug-related behavior,” the report concluded.

- An August Government Accountability Office (GAO) evaluation reported: “Exposure to the advertisements generally did not lead youth to disapprove of using drugs and may have promoted perceptions among exposed youth that others’ drug use was normal. … Exposure to the campaign did not prevent initiation of marijuana use and had no effect on curtailing current users’ marijuana use.”

- A January Texas State University study published in the journal Addictive Behaviors reported that teens are more likely to express their intent to use marijuana after viewing the Feds’ anti-pot ads. Investigators concluded, “It appears that ... anti-marijuana public statement announcements used in national anti-drug campaigns in the U.S. produce immediate effects opposite [of those] intended by the creators of the campaign.”

Souder’s response? “Just because some study comes to some conclusion that the liberals doing the study wanted to have, doesn’t mean the study is accurate. Results are results.”

Indeed. And in this case, the results are in. There is nothing to be gained by exaggerating claims of marijuana’s alleged harms. (In the same MSNBC interview, Souder claimed – falsely – that thousands of Americans die every year from the occasional toke.) On the contrary, by overstating pot’s potential dangers, America’s policymakers and law enforcement community undermine their credibility and ability to effectively educate the public of the risks that may be associated with cannabis or with more dangerous drugs. This is the reason why the Feds’ multibillion dollar media campaign, and the government’s drug ‘war’ efforts overall, have consistently fizzled.

Rather than continue down this failed path, federal officials like Rep. Souder ought to take a page from the government’s far more successful campaigns discouraging drunken driving and teen tobacco smoking, both of which have fallen dramatically since the mid-1990s. America has not achieved these results by arbitrarily outlawing the use of alcohol or tobacco, or by targeting and arresting adults who use these products responsibly, but through honest, health- and science-based education campaigns.

Until we as a nation apply these same principles to our educational efforts regarding cannabis, there will be little change in either teens’ perceptions of pot or their patterns of marijuana use, regardless of how much money Souder and Congress spend.

Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for NORML and the NORML Foundation in Washington, DC.

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Disclaimer: I love to grow

Buzzby

The latest crop of ONDCP-sponsored PSAs is the silliest yet. They're line drawing animations of people being criticized by other people (or dogs) for using marijuana. The implication is that people who use marijuana are really ashamed/embarrassed about it! That approach will have an effect only on the very small percentage of users who feel that their use is harmful but continue to do it anyway. Does anyone honestly expect that a cartoon is going to tell those people anything they don't already know?

Chalk up yet another money-waster for the ONDCP!

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newgrowerNY

Yep, saw something similar on American Idol (my fiance loves that show ) no less. They must of paid a pretty penny for that advertising slot. It was a commercial about a girl and a guy sitting on a park bench. An alien lands and the guy is smoking pot, and the girl ran off with the alien. Made me want to quit on the spot. I started rethinking my life too.

BillieBudd

Of course nonsense like the alien ad will not work, particularly to the target audience. The governement should do to weed what it does to tobacco...that is to say, make it legal to possess and then present a well thought out campaign to present the facts on why the government thinks that cannabis use is unhealthy and socially unacceptable..If they are successful, then usage will decline just as it has for tobacco. But this crap is only lining the pockets of the ad agencies and the media outlets..better the government should spend the money on decent health care for wounded GIs

Buzzby

That's only because aliens have higher technology and therefore better weed!

I'd go with the alien, too.