NEW YORK, NY, August 29, 2006 -- This past week the government issued a report that questioned the effectiveness of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The campaign served as a nationwide education program designed to prevent and discourage teen drug use. The report endorsed a research study claiming to show that the campaign had no positive effect on teens’ drug-related attitudes or behavior between 2000 and 2004.

The report comes at a time when teen drug use has declined over the past eight years, including 19 percent over the past four years. Major national surveys, including the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the Partnership Attitude Tracking Study, all confirm this decline.

Why might this one study produce a counter-intuitive finding? Perhaps because it attempts to prove something that isn’t provable – that advertising operates in a vacuum to shape our attitudes and behavior. Among the many things my 40 years in advertising have taught me is that advertising works in concert with other influences. If an advertising campaign is good, it becomes one of the voices a consumer hears when he or she is considering a purchase – or a particular behavior.

Anti-drug advertising works in the same way, in concert with the preventive messages teens get from their parents, in school and elsewhere. The fact is more teens today are getting the message about dangerous drug use, whether that message originates from the home, the classroom or through the media. We do know that advertising can and does play a vital role in driving the message home. Between 2002 and 2005, teen Ecstasy use dropped by over 75 percent on the heels of a comprehensive public education campaign. The teen population also witnessed a 21 percent drop in the use of inhalants (such as household chemical products), a 70 percent drop in cocaine use and drastic declines in heroin use following similar campaigns.

Conversely, reduced support for anti-drug public service advertising coincided with a significant increase in teen drug use between 1992 and 1997. The National Youth Anti Drug Media Campaign has helped to reverse this trend. Moreover, the campaign’s message and strategy continues to evolve in an effort to address ever-changing youth culture and teen attitudes. In fact, a typical response from teens exposed to the current advertising is that it “makes me think how important it is to make good choices.” This alone represents the best evidence that the campaign has achieved enormous success in helping young people decide not to use illicit drugs.

Professionals in the treatment and prevention arena, along with our partners in Washington, must continue to build upon the progress we have achieved over the past several years – including this astounding decline in teen drug abuse. There is still much more to accomplish, particularly when teens across America are facing more challenging threats, especially the non medical abuse of prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines, both of which pose a great threat to the health and well-being of our families.

To do otherwise would send a clear message that we are turning our backs on a generation of young people already besieged by an array of pro-drug messages. It is a cost not measured by a government report, but by the potential lives ruined from illicit drug abuse.

Roy Bostock
Chairman
Partnership for a Drug-Free America