Government-Commissioned
Study
of
White
House
Anti-Drug
Ad
Campaign
Says
$1.5
Billion
Program
Fails
to
Reduce
Teen
Use
3/15/02
(courtesy NORML Foundation, http://www.norml.org) The federal government's $1.5 billion anti-drug ad campaign fails to influence teens to refrain from using illegal drugs, particularly marijuana, according to an evaluation by Westat Inc. and the Annenberg Public Policy Center for the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). According to the review, teens exposed to the government's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign are no more likely to refrain from trying drugs because of their exposure. "There [is] no pattern of significant association between exposure and target outcomes for youth," the report says. "Neither the overall results nor the subgroup analyses show consistent evidence supportive of a direct Campaign effect." The report defined the primary objective of the government's advertising campaign as "reduc[ing] the number of young people who try marijuana." Since 1997, the campaign has purchased enough advertising time to expose adolescents to an average of 2.7 ads per week, including a pair of controversial 2002 Super Bowl ads costing some $3.4 million. However, the Westat and Annenberg review found "inadequate evidence to support a claim of change in marijuana use thus far." In fact, the report states that the only significant association attributable to the ad campaign was an increase in marijuana use among 14- to 15-year-olds. The evaluation also found "some evidence" of an increase in marijuana use among suburban 14- to 18-year-olds. "In summary, thus far there is relatively little evidence for direct effects of the Campaign on youth," authors concluded. "While there were scattered significant positive results [among 12- to 13-years-olds,] they were balanced by scattered significant negative results [among 14- to 18-year-olds.]" The report is the third in a series reviewing the government program. The Westat and Annenberg report focused on Phase III of the ad campaign, a period that began in September 1999 and is planned to run at least until the end of this spring.
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