ARM-ME BLOG

http://creatingadrugfreeworld.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html

July 5, 2008   A study by the Rockville, Maryland research group Westat, validated by the General Accounting Office, showed that $1.2 billion of taxpayer money was umped into a youth anti-drug campaign that failed to show a positive result. The campaign was the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign that ran between 1998 and 2004, created and run by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), a branch of the White House.

The Westat group measured improvements in drug use or opinions of drug use by students and found that the campaign, rather than lessening drug use, “may have prompted perceptions among exposed youth that other’s drug use was normal.”

Even parents receiving these drug messages were not impressed. The Westat review showed that more parents talked to their kids about drugs subsequent to being exposed to the campaign but did not monitor their children’s drug use any more vigilantly.

Still, the ONDCP was bold enough to recently ask Congress for another $130 million to continue the campaign. On their website they complain of a lack of support when the response was just 66 million for this failed campaign.