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Anti-Drug Advertising Campaign a Failure, GAO Report Says

Posted on: Tuesday, 29 August 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Donna Leinwand

WASHINGTON -- A $1.4 billion anti-drug advertising campaign conducted by the U.S. government since 1998 does not appear to have helped reduce drug use and instead might have convinced some youths that taking illegal drugs is normal, the Government Accountability Office says.

The GAO report, released Friday, urges Congress to stop the White House's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign unless drug czar John Walters can come up with a better strategy. President Bush's budget for 2007 asks Congress for $120 million for the campaign, a $20 million increase from this year.

Walters' office disputed the study and noted that drug-use rates among youths have declined since 1998. A 2005 survey by the University of Michigan indicated that 30% of 10th-graders reported having used an illicit drug the previous year, down from 35% in 1998.

The GAO report is "irrelevant to us," says Tom Riley, spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). "It's based on ads from 2 1/2 years ago, and they were effective, too. Drug use has been going down dramatically. Cutting the program now would imperil (its) progress."

The report was addressed to Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that handles ONDCP, and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the panel's top Democrat. Neither senator was available for comment.

The media campaign, which purchases TV time, radio spots and newspaper ads, changed its advertising theme last year. The old approach said parents and informed teens were "the Anti-Drug." The latest version encourages teens to be "above the influence."

The report by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, confirmed the results of a $43 million, government-funded study that found the campaign did not work. That evaluation, by Westat Inc. and the University of Pennsylvania, said parents and youths remembered the ads and their messages. But the study said exposure to the ads did not change kids' attitudes about drugs and that the reduction in drug use in recent years could be attributed more directly to a range of other factors, such as a decline in high school dropouts.

The Westat study also said youths could interpret the ads to suggest that marijuana use is more common than it actually is.

The anti-drug campaign had been criticized before. In 2003, the White House Office of Management and Budget called the campaign "non-performing" and said it had not demonstrated results.

Walters criticized the methodology cited in the GAO report. He said Westat wanted proof of a direct link between the ads and decreases in drug use among teens, which is difficult to show.

The drug czar's office "is being held to a standard that no other ... advertiser can be held to," says Steve Pasierb of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which helps coordinate the ad campaign.

(c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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