{"id":7533,"date":"2011-03-18T11:29:05","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T11:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=7533"},"modified":"2011-03-18T11:29:05","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T11:29:05","slug":"national-anti-drug-campaign-succeeds-in-lowering-marijuana-use-study-suggests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2011\/03\/national-anti-drug-campaign-succeeds-in-lowering-marijuana-use-study-suggests\/","title":{"rendered":"National Anti-drug Campaign Succeeds in Lowering Marijuana Use, Study Suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"

COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2013 The federal anti-drug campaign \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d appears to have effectively reduced marijuana use by teenagers, new research shows. A study of more than 3,000 students in 20 communities nationwide found that by the end of 8th grade, 12 percent of those who had not reported having seen the campaign took up marijuana use compared to only 8 percent among students who had reported familiarity with the campaign.<\/p>\n

Evidence for the success of \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d is especially heartening because the primary independent evaluation of its predecessor campaign, \u201cMy Anti-Drug\u201d, showed no evidence for success, said Michael Slater, principal investigator of the new study and professor of communication at Ohio State University. \u201cThe \u2018Above the Influence\u2019 campaign appears to be successful because it taps into the desire by teenagers to be independent and self-sufficient,\u201d Slater said. For example, one television ad in the campaign ends with the line \u201cGetting messed up is just another way of leaving yourself behind.\u201d
\nCampaigns that only emphasize the risk of drug use may not be effective with many teens.
\n\u201cWe know that many teenagers are not risk avoidant, and consider the risks of marijuana to be modest. A campaign that merely emphasizes already-familiar risks of marijuana probably won\u2019t reach the teens who are most likely to experiment with drugs,\u201d he said.
\nThe study appears in the March 2011 issue of the journal Prevention Science.
\nSlater said this study was not originally designed to study the effectiveness of the \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d campaign, which is sponsored by the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Instead, the study was going to examine the effectiveness of a very similar, but more localized anti-drug campaign called \u201cBe Under Your Own Influence.\u201d This theme was developed years before the \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d campaign by study co-author Kathleen Kelly, professor of marketing at Colorado State University.
\nIt involved in-school media and promotional materials combined with community-based efforts. Like the \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d campaign, it emphasized that drug use undermines the ability of teens to achieve their goals and act independently. Slater said that members of his research team presented preliminary results supporting the effectiveness of \u201cBe Under Your Own Influence\u201d to the ONDCP and to Partnership for Drug Free America, which oversees creative efforts for the national campaign, in 2003, about two years before \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d was launched. However, the researchers did not have any direct input into the development of the \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d campaign.
\nSlater said the approaches are very similar. \u2018Above the Influence\u2019 uses the same approach \u2014 focusing on the inconsistency of substance use with teens\u2019 aspirations and autonomy \u2014 that we developed,\u201d he said.
\nA study published in 2006 of \u201cBe Under Your Own Influence\u201d showed that it reduced by about half the number of students who began using marijuana and alcohol during the two years of the project, compared to students in communities without the program. This new study was designed to replicate and extend the previous research, Slater said. In the 20 communities involved in the study, schools received some combination of some, all or none of the \u201cBe Under Your Own Influence\u201d materials.
\nThe researchers surveyed 3,236 students who were about 12 years old when the study began in 2005. They were surveyed four times beginning in 7th grade and ending about a year and a half later. The researchers didn\u2019t know that the ONDCP would be launching its \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d campaign about the same time this new study began. As a result, though, the researchers asked students about their exposure to the national campaign during the second through fourth surveys.
\nThe results of this study showed that the ONDCP campaign appeared to be very successful at reaching students: up to 79 percent of students surveyed said they had seen the ads. \u201cThere was wide exposure to the national campaign, and it really swamped the effects of our local effort,\u201d Slater said. \u201cIt took over, and we didn\u2019t see any independent effects for the \u2018Be Under Your Own Influence\u2019 campaign.\u201d
\nBut it was really the message of \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d that mattered in reducing marijuana use \u2013 not the fact that it was a national campaign, he said. In their previous study, the researchers found that \u201cBe Under Your Own Influence\u201d showed strong local anti-drug effects, even though the national \u201cMy Anti-Drug\u201d campaign was going on. \u201c\u2018Above the Influence\u2019 has succeeded more than its predecessor attempt to influence teens,\u201d Slater said.
\nThe effectiveness of the ONDCP campaign can be seen in the way it appeared to influence attitudes of teens who viewed the ads. Results showed that teens who had seen the \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d ads were more likely than others to say that marijuana use was inconsistent with being autonomous and independent and that it would interfere with their goals and aspirations. \u201cThe teens seemed to pick up on the messages that the campaign promoted,\u201d Slater said. \u201cThe campaign really works to honor teens\u2019 interest in becoming autonomous and achieving goals and stays away from messages that don\u2019t really reach the teens who are most likely to use marijuana.\u201d
\nSlater says study limitations include the fact that findings regarding the ONDCP campaign were based on survey results and not a randomized, experimental design in which some youth saw the ONDCP campaign and others did not. Another limitation was that the study, while taking place in 20 communities around the U.S., did not use a random sample of U.S. youth.
\nOther co-authors of the study were Frank Lawrence of Penn State University; Linda Stanley of Colorado State University; and Maria Leonora G. Comello of the University of North Carolina.
\nThe research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/researchnews.osu.edu\/archive\/aboveinfluence.htm March 2011
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COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2013 The federal anti-drug campaign \u201cAbove the Influence\u201d appears to have effectively reduced marijuana use by teenagers, new research shows. A study of more than 3,000 students in 20 communities nationwide found that by the end of 8th grade, 12 percent of those who had not reported having seen the campaign took up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prevention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}