Antidrug Campaign commercials and specials designed to play on society.

1. ANTIDRUG CAMPAIGN
Your Brain On Anti-Drug Campaign: Scrambled
Anti-drug campaign commercials and specials
designed to play on society’s fears blanketed the
airwaves for more than 30 years.

2. The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign is a
current domestic government propaganda campaign in the
United States conducted by the Office of National Drug
Control Policy (ONDCP) within the Executive Office of the
President of the United States with the goal to “influence
the attitudes of the public and the news media with respect
to drug abuse” and of “reducing and preventing drug
abuse among young people in the United States”.

3. Heroin StudyIn fact, numerous researchers cited in a
Scientific American article titled “Why ‘Just Say No’ Doesn’t
Work” concluded that the programs had little impact on teen
drug use. These campaigns now act as a different type of
cautionary tale – what not to do to fight teen drug use. The ads
and Public Service Announcements hold a special place in our
collective cultural conscious – more nostalgic wry amusement
and a sadness that this country wasted so much time and
money.

4. What we do know is that community engagement and close
interaction between mentors and teens through programs like Above the
Influence (ATI) have predicted decreases in marijuana use. So, we keep
trying to do something to make a dent, regardless of the astronomical
costs and strain on resources. As Michael Botticelli, director of the
National Drug Control Policy recently stated, “This issue touches every
family and every community in one way or another. There are millions of
Americans – including myself – who are in successful long-term recovery
from a substance use disorder. The (newest) policy supports each and
every one of us and demonstrates a real commitment to a smarter, more
humane approach to drug policy in the 21st century.”

5. HOW IT ALL BEGAN?
President Richard Nixon, learning in 1971 that 10
to 15 percent of servicemen in Vietnam were addicted
to heroin, declared drug abuse “public enemy No. 1”
and the War on Drugs was born .

6. Every administration since Nixon’s has had
comprehensive initiatives to fight drug use, which go far
beyond prevention into border control and drug treatment
programs. These efforts cost us a whopping $51 billion
annually. In 1988, the Drug Czar, as the head of the Office of
National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) became known,
mandated a national anti-drug campaign directed at youth
and funded the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. The
heavens opened, and money poured forth.

7. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
It’s difficult with the perspective of time to see the
campaigns of the past as anything but bewildering.
Since they clearly didn’t work, reflecting on past
campaigns comes with a healthy dose of cynicism.

8. FOLLOW THE MONEY
The government (a.k.a. “we”) allocated billions of dollars for
these campaigns. To give you an idea of how much money was
spent, from 1977 to 1982 alone, Congress appropriated $1
billion to anti-drug campaigns. By the late ‘80s, $1 million in
media time was devoted each day to scaring us away from
drugs.
In fact, a single anti-marijuana campaign12 spent $1.4
billion between 1998 and 2005. That’s an average of a half a
million dollars per day to deter marijuana use.

9. SCARED MUCH?
When you think about it, how could anyone seriously think
that commercials and television specials could have a fighting
chance against the thrill-seeking, undeveloped teenage-or-
younger brain or the various cartels of the world using their
own tactics to hook kids. There are just too many other
variables at play to think these anti-drug media campaigns
could work: family history, parental involvement, the
international drug trade, geography, availability,
socioeconomics and even trends in favored drugs.

10. As a result, it’s almost impossible to draw a cause-and-effect
line between watching a few PSAs and TV specials and
preventing teens from using drugs. A handful of studies
indicated a possible correlation, but even the government’s
own research found little evidence that the media campaigns
worked. The study “Effects of the National Youth Anti-Drug
Media Campaign on Youths,” funded by the National
Institutes of Health concluded: “The campaign is unlikely to
have had favorable effects on youths and may have had
delayed unfavorable effects.”

11. In other words, the results revealed a behavioral
reaction in the opposite direction, or a “boomerang
effect,” where greater exposure to the campaign
resulted in increased drug use. The scare campaigns
crossed borders. Even though there was and is meager
evidence to show their veracity, according to BBC writer
Brian Wheeler.

12. Want more proof of failure?A 2011 Canadian review
and meta-analysis took a broad and deep look at the
“effectiveness” of these campaigns and concluded:
“Existing evidence suggests that the dissemination of
anti-illicit-drug PSAs may have a limited impact on the
intention to use illicit drugs or the patterns of illicit-
drug use among target populations.”

13. Although illegal drug use decreased from the late ‘70s to
early ‘90s, overall drug use more than doubled in 1992.
Experts referred to this year as a “relapse” in the drug
epidemic. This uptick occurred on the heels of the period
when the airwaves were saturated with scare campaigns.
RATES OF DRUG ABUSE:
ANYTHING BUT CLEAR

14. Multiple studies have been done over the years on the
rates of illegal drug use. From the National Survey on Drug
Use and Health we learned, in 2012, that illegal drug use in
America was again on the rise. That same year, another
study sponsored by the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids at
Drugfree.org, in conjunction with the MetLife Foundation,
showed an increase in prescription drug abuse among
teens, with 24 percent of high school students claiming to
have abused these medications, a 33 percent increase from
2008.

15. Then just two years later, in 2014, the
Monitoring the Future Study (an ongoing study
since 1975) showed a decrease in the use of certain
illegal drugs (but not heroin). From the Centers for
Disease Control’s National Youth Risk Behavior
Survey we glean insight into the increases and
decreases of misuse of all kinds of drugs between
1991 and 2013: marijuana, cocaine, heroin,
steroids, inhalants and more.

16. ONE THING IS CLEAR: WE
DEFINITELY HAVE A DRUG
ABUSE PROBLEM.

17. WHAT NEXT?
According to a 2011 Substance Abuse Risk Factor
study, drug users tend to be more informed about risks
and consequences of drug use than non-users. So,
intervention campaigns that focus on disseminating
information may be of limited value.

18. Above the Influence recently transitioned
away from government control and is
now under the auspices of the not-for-
profit, Partnership for Drug-Free Kids.

19. Using prevention messaging that promotes
alternatives to drug use, ATI is heavily supported by
targeted local efforts and the scientific concept that a
substance use disorder is not primarily a moral failing
– a key message in the media campaigns of the past
– “but rather a disease of the brain that can be
prevented and treated.”

20. This is the cornerstone of the Obama
administration’s 2014 National Drug
Control Strategy, which focuses on
addiction as a disease, based on
discoveries about the brain.

21. The driving force behind this stance is Dr.
Nora Volkow, the director of the National
Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the
National Institutes of Health, who pioneered
the use of brain imaging to investigate the
effects and addictive properties of drugs.

22. Currently, the White House’s No. 1 anti-drug
priority is indeed community-based programs, not
PSAs. Federal resources, totaling $1.3 billion, support
education and outreach programs intended to
discourage the use of controlled substances, while
encouraging community outreach efforts focused on
getting those who have begun to use illegal drugs to
stop. This is a 4.7 percent increase ($59.9 million)
over the FY 2014 level.

23. Community-based interactive programs, like Narcotics
Overdose Prevention and Education (NOPE), the Robert
Crown Center Heroin Prevention Program, Not My Kid
and many, many others, focus on educating students face-
to-face (sometimes peer-to-peer) about the dangers of
drugs. After the hue and cry following the inefficacy of
earlier programs, the Office of the National Drug Control
Policy is more than a little eager to show the effectiveness
of locally-driven campaigns like, Above the Influence.

24. If you’re in your 30s, you surely remember
Drug Abuse Resistance Education. D.A.R.E., an
initiative that brought police officers and other
volunteers into schools (75 percent of school
districts nationwide), to educate and scare youth
away from unsavory drug influences. Especially
now, in today’s climate, it’s particularly difficult
to imagine the effectiveness of cops scaring
students straight.

25. The six long-term evaluations of the DARE
elementary school curriculum that we
reviewed found no significant differences in
illicit drug use between students who received
DARE in the fifth or sixth grade (the
intervention group) and students who did not
(the control group).”

26. THE NEW APPROACH
This approach to the Above the Influence (ATI)
campaign continues previous efforts with an effort to
reach teens with a highly visible and effective national
messaging presence while supporting and funding local
participation. The White House identifies some of these
organizations: Drug-Free Community grantees, Boys and
Girls Clubs of America, SADD Chapters, Girl’s Inc., Girl
Scouts, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America
(CADCA), the National Organization for Youth Safety
(NOYS), ASPIRA, and YMCAs.

27. THERE’S ALWAYS HOPE FOR
A BETTER TOMORROW
While the focus has shifted from broad-based media
campaigns to community-led programs primarily driven by
science, government spending hasn’t abated one bit. Federal
funding for public health programs that address substance use
has increased every year with the portion (43 percent) spent
on drug treatment and prevention efforts now at its highest
level in over 12 years.

28. What’s different from the media campaigns is
that these new programs are locally integrated.
Kids can relate to tragedy that happens in their
neighborhoods and to kids like them. But does
that stop kids from using drugs ? Although one
student commented that it felt personal, he was
circumspect about whether or not the NOPE
presentation would actually change behavior.

29. Addressing the impact of substance abuse is
estimated to cost Americans more than $600
billion each year. While the community-based
programs purport to be scientifically based,
what that means is that the information given to
the target audience is scientifically factual, not
that we have a scientifically verified method to
keep people from using drugs.

30. Teenagers are inherently experimental and human
nature means that some teens will experiment with
drugs – and, sadly, some will become addicts. The
hope is that an informational approach that respects
their intelligence is more likely to engage young
minds and less likely to make them reject the
information out of hand. The devastating effects
of drug abuse touch everyone – and wreak havoc
on society.