THE FEDERAL ANTI-DRUG AD CAMPAIGN YIELDS ONLY DISAPPOINTING
RESULTS

Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Souder recently took to the airwaves to
defend one of the Bush administration's sacred cows: the National
Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

If you've had access to a television or a newspaper over the past few
years, you're familiar with the federal ad campaign. It's the one
that's spent over $2 billion since 1998 to produce public-service
announcements implying that smoking pot supports al-Qaida and may
make you pregnant, among other dubious anti-drug messages. So
dubious, in fact, that the campaign has flopped miserably among its
target audience. Of course, this fact matters not to the White House,
which recently demanded $130 million to run the ads through 2008 -- a
31 percent increase over current funding levels.

Speaking recently with MSNBC's Tucker Carlson, Souder vehemently
defended the administration's decision to increase spending for the
much-maligned campaign, stating, "The fact is, I believe in results
and conservatives believe in results." That said, the results
couldn't be any worse.

Consider this:

- - A 2002 review by the research firm Westat Inc. and the Annenberg
Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania found "no
statistically significant decline in marijuana use or improvement in
beliefs and attitudes about marijuana use" attributable to the media
campaign. Authors of the report -- which was sponsored by the federal
government -- later told Congress that the negative results were
among the worst in the history of large-scale public communication campaigns.

- - A 2003 performance assessment by the White House Office of
Management and Budget criticized the Media Campaign for failing to
achieve any tangible goals or objectives. There exists "no evidence
that paid media messages have a direct effect on youth drug-related
behavior," the report concluded.

- - An August Government Accountability Office (GAO) evaluation
reported: "[E]xposure to the advertisements generally did not lead
youth to disapprove of using drugs and may have promoted perceptions
among exposed youth that others' drug use was normal. [E]xposure to
the campaign did not prevent initiation of marijuana use and had no
effect on curtailing current users' marijuana use."

- - A January Texas State University study published in the journal
Addictive Behaviors reported that teens are more likely to express
their intent to use marijuana after viewing the Feds' anti-pot ads.
Investigators concluded, "It appears that ... anti-marijuana public
statement announcements used in national anti-drug campaigns in the
U.S. produce immediate effects opposite [of those] intended by the
creators of the campaign."

Souder's response? "Just because some study comes to some conclusion
that the liberals doing the study wanted to have, doesn't mean the
study is accurate. Results are results."

Indeed. And in this case, the results are in. There is nothing to be
gained by exaggerating claims of marijuana's alleged harms. (In the
same MSNBC interview, Souder claimed -- falsely -- that thousands of
Americans die every year from the occasional toke.) On the contrary,
by overstating pot's potential dangers, America's policymakers and
law enforcement community undermine their credibility and ability to
effectively educate the public of the risks that may be associated
with cannabis or with more dangerous drugs. This is the reason why
the Feds' multibillion dollar media campaign, and the government's
drug 'war' efforts overall, have consistently fizzled.

Rather than continue down this failed path, federal officials like
Rep. Souder ought to take a page from the government's far more
successful campaigns discouraging drunken driving and teen tobacco
smoking, both of which have fallen dramatically since the mid-1990s.
America has not achieved these results by arbitrarily outlawing the
use of alcohol or tobacco, or by targeting and arresting adults who
use these products responsibly, but through honest, health- and
science-based education campaigns.

Until we as a nation apply these same principles to our educational
efforts regarding cannabis, there will be little change in either
teens' perceptions of pot or their patterns of marijuana use,
regardless of how much money Souder and Congress spend.