House
Holds
Hearing
on
Youth-Targeted
Anti-Drug
Ads
10/15/99
Ted Bridges, Drug Policy Foundation, [email protected] On Thursday, October 14, the Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee (Chairman John Mica, R-FL) of the House Government Reform Committee held a hearing on the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) national anti-drug media campaign directed at youth. Rather than focusing on recent research indicating that the effectiveness of such media campaigns is dubious, the hearing dwelled instead on money management issues within the ONDCP. Congressman Mica expressed concerns to ONDCP chief and "Drug Czar" Barry McCaffrey that ONDCP spending programs for media buys or purchased ad space were overly complex and burdensome. "The 'P' in ONDCP stands for 'Policy,' not 'Programs,'" said Mica. Among Mica's concerns were that the media buys were not being watched by other organizations, that the media buys involved too many subcontractors, that an Internet celebrity chat line was unnecessary, and that money ONDCP gave to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration represented a duplicated effort. McCaffrey defended the media campaign, pointing out that sophisticated marketing approaches were more necessary than ever before in today's media environment. "The menu of social marketing activities... now includes media advocacy, interpersonal and group outreach programs, 'edu-tainment' initiatives, public/private and community partnerships, and the utilization of new media technologies like the Internet," said McCaffrey. McCaffrey demonstrated the media campaign by showing four 30-second commercials. Each commercial was based on the premise that more communication between children and parents decreases drug use. Representative Bob Barr (R-GA) suggested that radio advertising might be more cost-effective than Internet chat lines, and expressed his strong wish to see McCaffrey himself as a celebrity spokesperson in those ads. McCaffrey responded that a 14-year-old is far more likely to be persuaded by another 14-year-old than by McCaffrey. Barr also used the hearing as an opportunity to criticize President Clinton's veto of the FY 2000 District of Columbia Appropriations bill. The bill included a rider, sponsored by Barr, which would have blocked the implementation of a medical marijuana referendum overwhelmingly passed by District voters in 1998. The only testimony of the day which called into question the effectiveness of the $185 million media campaign came from S. Shyam Sundar, an Assistant Professor and Director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State University. Sundar's research indicates that youths who had been exposed to anti-drug ads were more likely to express curiosity about experimenting with drugs than those who had not seen the ads, because the ads increased their awareness of drugs. Sundar urged further research on the matter.
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