Issue

In 2006, Congress appropriated $100 million to fund the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. While ONDCP continues to claim their anti-drug ads are an important tool in the fight to reduce youth drug abuse, scientific studies have repeatedly shown the campaign to not only be an ineffective waste of taxpayer money, but that the ads may actually increase pro-drug attitudes in teens.

What’s Wrong With the Media Campaign?

It is ineffective and may actually cause more teen drug abuse
A series of scientific evaluations of the ads’ effectiveness funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse have repeatedly called into question the wisdom of maintaining the campaign, finding “little evidence of direct favorable campaign effects on youth” and that “effects were consistently in an unfavorable direction, i.e., higher exposure leading to weaker anti-drug norms. In addition, there may have been a significant unfavorable effect of exposure from the Marijuana Initiative period on initiation of use, i.e., higher campaign exposure leading to higher rates of initiation.”1

Similarly, a 2006 Texas State University study found that “exposure to [ONDCP’s] anti-marijuana advertising might not only change young viewers’ attitudes to more positive toward this substance, but also might directly increase risk of using marijuana.”2

Obviously, these findings don’t bode well for the campaign’s continuation, as they directly contradict its stated justification of reducing youth drug abuse. ONDCP went so far as to attempt to prevent the release of NIDA’s 2004 evaluation until compelled to do so by an August 2006 Government Accountability Office report detailing its results.

The ads backfire because the messages don’t resonate with young people. Not surprisingly, teens react negatively to the ads’ one-sided and misleading messages. Young people want to know the truth about the effects of drugs and their real risks. But ads that obviously exaggerate and stretch reality are offensive to teens and turn them off to ONDCP’s overall anti-drug message.

It is expensive
ONDCP has spent nearly $1.5 billion on the campaign since it was first authorized in 1998. Groups like the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste,3 and Taxpayers for Common Sense4 have criticized excessive spending on the ineffective campaign. Even the 100-member Republican Study Committee in the House called for the campaign to be completely eliminated, finding that doing so would save taxpayers $631 million over the next five years and $1.3 billion over ten years.5

The White House Office of Management and Budget gave the campaign a rating of just 6% for results and accountability, writing it has “little or no direct positive effect on youth behavior and attitudes.”6 Nonetheless, President Bush requested $120 million to fund the program for 2007. Congress has repeatedly warned ONDCP to produce results with the campaign or lose funding.7 But while appropriations have been reduced 47% since 2001, it will still be funded at $100 million next year under the House-passed H.R.5576.8

This year, GAO recommended that “Congress should consider limiting appropriations for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign beginning in the fiscal 2007 budget year until ONDCP is able to provide credible evidence of the effectiveness of exposure to the campaign on youth drug use outcomes or provide other credible options for a media campaign approach.”9

ONDCP has notoriously mismanaged the campaign
In addition to being criticized for its ineffectiveness and costliness, the campaign has also been mired in controversy over a number of other issues.

* In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ONDCP spent $4 million to run two controversial 30-second ads linking drug use to terrorism during the 2002 Super Bowl, angering even longtime allies like the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

* In 2005, the Government Accountability Office found that ONDCP illegally used campaign appropriations to produce and distribute “covert propaganda” in the form of fake TV news stories featuring actors posing as reporters, which aired on nearly 300 television stations and reached 22 million households nationwide.10

* Due to ONDCP’s lack of a competitive bidding process, advertising executives contracted by the campaign were indicted for conspiring to defraud and over-bill taxpayers.

* In 2000, ONDCP was caught giving financial incentives to TV networks in exchange for altering their program’s scripts to include anti-drug messages.

* The campaign has been criticized for its obsessive focus on marijuana. None of ONDCP’s recent ads have even mentioned other drugs like cocaine, heroin, or alcohol.

* ONDCP has been repeatedly accused of using their ads to illegally advocate against citizen ballot initiatives and state legislation dealing with drug policy.

Solution: Remove the Campaign from the ONDCP Reauthorization Bill (H.R.2829/S.2560) or Cut Funding from the Transportation-Treasury-Housing-Urban Development Appropriations Bill (H.R.5576).

There are many deserving programs that aren’t adequately funded, but are actually effective at reducing youth drug abuse and keeping teens out of trouble. The $100 million currently earmarked for the ineffective and harmful media campaign would be much better spent elsewhere.

Sources:

1 http://www.nida.nih.gov/DESPR/Westat/

2 Maria Czyzewska. Explicit and implicit effects of anti-marijuana and anti-tobacco TV advertisements. Addictive Behaviors. May 3, 2006.

3 http://www.cagw.org/site/DocServer/Drug_Report.pdf?docID=1661

4 http://www.taxpayer.net/drugreform/intro.htm

5 http://www.house.gov/pence/rsc/doc/RSC_Budget_Options_2005.pdf

6 http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/summary.10000356.2005.html

7 U.S. Congress, Conference Committees, 2003, Making Further Continuing Appropriations for the Fiscal Year 2003, and for Other Purposes, conference report to accompany H.J.Res. 2, H.Rept. 108-10, 108th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington: GPO, 2003), pp. 1345-1346.

8 CRS Report RS21490, War on Drugs: the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

9 http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06818.pdf

10 http://www.gao.gov/decisions/appro/303495.htm