On Friday, August 24, 2006, the General Accounting Office (GAO), an investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, released a report on the government’s billion-dollar-plus anti-drug advertising campaign. The $42 million study, conducted by the research organization Westat of Rockville, Maryland, concluded that the program, in operation since 1998, is ineffective in reducing teen drug use and recommended that funding be limited by Congress until the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the managing agency, “provides credible evidence of a media campaign approach that effectively prevents and curtails youth drug use.” This constituted the third review in as many years that detailed the ineffectiveness of the government’s anti-drug ads, with the White House Office of Management and Budget labeling it as “non-performing” in 2003, and the University of Pennsylvania’s $43 million study finding in 2005 that it did not work.

You might expect, in view of the evidence, a rapid ending of the project. Perhaps, but government programs don’t work that way. In reality, the program is alive and well, with President Bush recommending that funding be increased from its current $100 million to $120 million for fiscal year 2007. As a part of the War on Drugs, kicked off by President Richard Nixon in 1971 and growing over the past thirty-five years to consume an ever increasing share of the nation’s GDP, it is sacrosanct. There are powerful economic interests that support the concept of anti-drug advertising. Its impetus was formation in 1986 of Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA), by Richard T. O’Reilly, an executive of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and it soon became closely affiliated with ONDCP as a consultant. Despite controversy over the years, including evidence of clandestine payments from tobacco, alcohol, and pharmaceutical firms, as well as deceptive public service advertisements, PDFA’s influence is not diminished.

Whether advertising to dissuade teenagers from drug use can be effective under any circumstances is questionable. The GAO issued the statement: “Westat’s evaluation reports and associated documentation leads to the conclusion that the evaluation provides credible evidence that the campaign was not effective in reducing youth drug use.” In response, Tom Riley, spokesman for ONDCP, contended that “…teen drug use has gone down dramatically…I think that’s the definition of successful advertising.” In a further rebuttal, drug czar John Walters issued a 5-page statement questioning the validity of Westat’s measurement criteria in that it sought to directly prove the effectiveness of advertising. “Establishing a causal relationship between exposure and outcomes is something major marketers rarely attempt because it is virtually impossible to do,” Walters wrote. Somewhat in corroboration, Nancy Kingsbury, the GAO’s managing director of applied research methods, acknowledged that Walters raised a valid point. “It is a really tough social science question to answer and we understand that,” she said.

A concluding thought:
This gets us to the bottom line. Whether fiscal 2007 funding for the anti-drug advertising campaign will increase or decrease is uncertain—though it’s my guess more money will be shoveled that way. But, regardless of how the infighting comes out, one thing is certain: The War on Drugs will continue to be waged. A drug policy expert from the Carnegie-Mellon University recently reported that “The drug war has cost American taxpayers upward of $40 billion annually in recent years.” So whether the cost of one small portion, which may or may not be effective, increases by $20 million or so doesn’t really matter.