KIDS DRUG EDUCATION/PREVENTION

My cites. Enforcement of Drug policy.

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Reseachers funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) said"There were indications of an increase in past month marijuana use between 2000 and 2002, followed by a decrease in both lifetime and past month use between 2002 and 2004, but there is no evidence that the Campaign was responsible for these changes. Among nonusing youth, there were favorable changes over time in anti-drug attitudes and beliefs, and the proportion of youth saying they would definitely not try marijuana; however, results from the association analyses did not support a claim that exposure to the Campaign influenced these trends.", and it also said "Finally, an analysis of youth who had already begun using marijuana yielded no evidence that higher Campaign exposure led to quitting or reduced use."(9 ).

Government Accountability Office (GAO)said about these anti drug spots. "credible evidence that the campaign was not effective in reducing youth drug use, either during the entire period of the campaign or during the period from 2002 to 2004, when the campaign was redirected and focused on marijuana use."(10 ).

With hundreds of million of dollars spent Media campaigns not only PDFA but the "just Say No" campaign, and MTV's "Rock Against Drugs.". The question is do scare tactics work? A survey found that 20% said the scare campaigns discouraged them to do drugs, 33% thought they encouraged drug use and 23% had under gone an attitude change and planned to try drugs (11).

A researcher discovered that not only are the anti drug advertisements not as effective as intended, they also may have the opposite effect. The spot linking drug use to terrorism led some youths to believe that marijuana should be legalized, and marijuana users should "grow their own"(12 ).

An independent review of an extreme anti meth scare campaign, by the Montana Meth Project (MMP), failed to stop methamphetamine abuse. The campaign showed the extreme consequences of using meth "just once." The review found that after six months of MMP graphic ads there was a three fold increase in teens saying using meth isn't a risky behavior and teens were more likely to say heroin and cocaine use isn't risky. Erceg-Hurn of a Society for Prevention Research said about an apparent drop in the use of meth and the ad campaign "Meth use had been declining for at least six years before the ad campaign commenced, which suggests that factors other than the graphic ads cause reductions in meth use. Another issue is that the launch of the ad campaign coincided with restrictions on the sale of cold and flu medicines commonly used in the production of meth. This means that drug use could be declining due to decreased production of meth, rather than being the result of the ad campaign," (13 )

ONE ON ONE EDUCATION

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program has been widely touted as a preventative for drug use. But One evaluation said "the level of drug use among kids who had gone through DARE was virtually identical to the level among kids who had not . . . [and based on multiple outcome measures the conclusion was reached that] DARE exposure does not produce any long-term prevention efforts on adolescent drug use rates." A 1994 National Institute of Justice sponsored Study said, "while DARE was loved by teachers and participants, it had no effect on drug use." (14 ).