THE PARTNERSHIP'S PROTEST

Great hullabaloo greeted my nearly 6,000-word article on the paucity of research underlying the theory behind anti-drug advertising. The article – which covered the government's plan to spend $1 billion of tax money over the next five years on a nationwide ad campaign and which included months of research – appeared in the April 27 edition of the marketing magazine, Brandweek, sister publication to AdWeek. I was screamed at, called a liar, sneered at for being a freelancer, threatened with lawsuits, and (prior to publication) importuned by academics for easy treatment due to lack of tenure.

First, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, the government's main partner in its new National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, responded to my article with a 24-page, single-spaced letter, which they insisted Brandweek reprint in its entirety. My editors told them that, aside from the fact the magazine could not afford to publish it in whole, no one would read it.

Then, representatives from the PDFA came to Brandweek for a face-to-face meeting. My favorite moment surfaced amidst relative calm sitting around a table with my two editors and three representatives from the Partnership. We started discussing zero tolerance, and how relying on it as the only acceptable educational concept lowers PDFA's creditability among young people. We started by saying that a full-court, zero-tolerance approach that is foreign to many teens' own - perhaps relative salutary - experiences might not be the best way to communicate with them.

One of the PDFA representatives interrupted at this point, a bit flustered. But zero tolerance, she said in effect, is official government policy. Surely, you're not questioning government policy? Hearing this, I beat down the temptation to give a lecture on the role of the press – even a low-profile trade journal – in a democracy.

In the meeting, the PDFA emphasized one point: We had ignored significant research backing its paradigm. The 24-page PDFA letter cited four studies, "any or all of which may be worthwhile." But why did the Partnership not make them available in the first place? It told me only of the three academics – Reis, Block, and Johnston. They sent me Reis's paper, and Block sent hers. Unpublished, Johnston's has yet to see the light of day, but he summarized his findings over the course of three interviews.

My editors requested that the Partnership give us the other research to see whether a follow-up article or clarification was necessary. Though touting that research throughout the meeting, the PDFAers seemed dubious. Finally, one editor handed each of them his card repeating the request.

At one point, the PDFAers told us that they would not send the other research to Brandweek if I were assigned to write the follow-up article. Though the request violated Brandweek's editorial independence, my editor said he would use another reporter. With no response from the Partnership, it is a moot point.

Though not primarily an abstruse journal of ideas, Brandweek ultimately printed an eight-page package of pro and con letters - including an edited version of the Partnership's letter – along with my rebuttal in the June 8 edition. Other than that response, PDFA appears to have raised the drawbridge.

The PDFA did concede a rarely heard point in its reply to Brandweek. After listing the research that it did not provide to us, PDFA President and CEO Richard Bonnette confirmed what the Partnership already knew. Citing public health professor Lawrence Wallack's quote from my article, Bonnette said that there are no "solid data that show the media campaigns create meaningful changes in behavior." He added, "This may, indeed, be true if one is looking for scientific data to document a cause-and-effect relationship between advertising and behavior." Understandably, this is not a point the Partnership has emphasized when asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in donated time, space, and services – not to mention the taxpayers' "contributions."