MPP alleges White House buried report that finds anti-marijuana ads backfire
Following an August 25, 2006, assessment by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) questioning the effectiveness of the White House-sponsored National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign (which runs ridiculous ads featuring teenagers under the influence of marijuana committing violent crimes), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) finally released an evaluation of the ad campaign that was kept under wraps for a year and a half. The report finds that the anti-marijuana campaign has not only failed to reduce teen marijuana use, but it actually increased marijuana use among certain adolescents.
MPP staffers first attempted to obtain a copy of the report in early 2005, when it was expected to be released. MPP believes that the White House drug czar's office buried the report until now because the office did not want the results to be made public, and that the drug czar's office is finally allowing NIDA to release the report only because the GAO has uncovered the negative results of the evaluation.
The report—which was commissioned by NIDA and performed by Westat, a private research firm—was made available to GAO investigators and served, in part, as the basis of the GAO assessment. According to the GAO, "The only significant effect indicated in Westat's analysis of the relationship between campaign exposure and self-reported drug use 'was an increase in first-time marijuana use by 12½- to 13-year-olds and girls.'" Responding to the drug czar's claim that failure to continue the media campaign would be "raising the white flag to those who favor drug legalization," the GAO authors wrote, "In our view, on the other hand, continuation of programs that have been demonstrated not to work diverts scarce resources from programs that may be more effective."
