The federal government’s $180 million youth anti-drug media campaign may be paying dividends in terms of reduced youth marijuana use, according to data released from the 2003 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey. Tobacco, Ecstasy and LSD use also showed substantial declines. But the report’s lead researcher says that while there is plenty of good news this year, the survey has some troubling warning signs about future drug-use trends. The 2003 survey found that current use of marijuana fell 11% over the past two year, matching a goal set by the Bush administration, which has focused the bulk of its anti-drug advertising on marijuana use. “Fewer teens are using drugs because of the deliberate and serious messages they have received about the dangers of drugs from their parents, leaders, and prevention efforts like our National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaignsaid John Walters, director of the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy.

University of Michigan researcher Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator for the survey, said it is “quite possible” that the media campaign “has had its intended effect.” Johnson told Join Together that he drew this conclusion because the proportion of kids who say they have been exposed to anti-drug ads and that view marijuana negatively has risen as pot use has declined. “You put these facts together and it looks like [the campaign] is having an effect,” he said. “It’s a logical deduction on our part; it hasn’t been proven empirically.” Overall, current use of any illicit drug fell 11%  between 2001 and 2003, from 19.4% of 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-graders to
17.3 %. However, one-third of students surveyed currently use alcohol, down 7 percent from 2001 but unchanged from 2002. Current cigarette use also declined, from 20.3% in 2001 to 16.6% in 2003.

The data, while positive overall, were not universally heartening. Use of powerful prescription drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin increased slightly, for instance, and use of cocaine, certain club drugs, and narcotics other than heroin was virtually unchanged over the two-year period studied. Moreover, said Johnston, drug-use rates don’t seem to be improving among younger teens, which could portend problems for the future. “I’m worried about getting another generation of kids who have not heard about drugs, because when you have things like the war in Iraq and 9/11, you don’t hear much about drugs,” he said. Johnston said just such a spike in drug use occurred after the first Gulf War, when national attention was diverted away from youth drug use. “The 8th-graders have been harbingers of change observed later in the upper grades, so the fact that they are no longer showing declines in their use of a number of drugs could mean that the declines now being observed in the upper grades also will come to an end soon,” Johnston said in a press statement on the report.

Good News on Illicit Drugs, But Attention to Alcohol Needed

David Rosenbloom, director of Join Together, called the data on illicit drug use and tobacco “very good news.” But he said that the prevalence of alcohol as the nation’s top drug of abuse among adolescents continues to be a cause for concern. “It’s distressing that progress against alcohol use — the most frequently consumed illicit substance for teenagers — has stalled over the past year,” said Rosenbloom. “There are strong governmental and voluntary activities directed against illicit drug and tobacco use by children. But there is virtually no concerted action against teen drinking. We need a strong nationwide effort, consistent with the 2003 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recommendationsthat involves parents, teens, governments, and private organizations in concerted action to prevent and reduce drinking by young people.”

While last year’s survey showed a decrease in overall alcohol use and heavy drinking occasions in all three grades, the researchers reported no statistically significant declines on these measures in the 2003 survey. MTF’s Johnston said that a media campaign on youth alcohol use similar to that currently targeting marijuana use would be valuable, noting that the anti-drunk driving campaigns waged by MADD and the Ad Council during the 1980s had a big impact on youth drinking and attitudes regarding alcohol use. “There have been private-sector campaigns, but it would be ideal to see government money go into it, not just for alcohol but tobacco use, too,” Johnston said. He added that such a campaign would need to be carefully crafted and vetted, noting that the initial ads in the ONDCP anti-drug campaign “weren’t very effective because they didn’t talk about the dangers of drugs and had to put these ONDCP tags on all the ads,” which he said was a signal for kids to tune the messages out.

Tom Riley, a spokesperson for ONDCP, acknowledged that in the wake of the NAS report “a lot of people in the prevention community have been asking us about teen alcohol use, which is a huge problem.” But while he said the current anti-drug media campaign could have a “spillover effect” on youth alcohol use, he said that Congress has limited the campaign to illicit-drug use.

Reasons for Declines Vary

While ONDCP credited the media campaign for the decrease in marijuana use, explanations for the decline in other drug use varied. Both lifetime and current use of ecstasy use fell sharply (to 5.5% and 1.1 % of those surveyed, respectively), for example, and Johnston speculated that increased media coverage of the drug had helped raise perceptions about the drug’s dangers among youth. LSD use continued a long pattern of decline, possibly because of decreased availability due to interdiction efforts.

The long-term trend — which show a dramatic decrease in drug use over the past 30 years, despite a spike upwards in the early 1990s – is significant. ONDCP’s Tom Riley called for continued commitment to maintain the positive advances. “It’s not just do it once and it’s done,” he said. “We need brand-new educational efforts for each new cadre of kids.”