Contact: Rafael Lemaitre or Bob Weiner (202) 395-6618

June 7, 1999

MCCAFFREY SAYS INCLUSION OF UNRESEARCHED AND UNDER FUNDED ALCOHOL ADS IN YOUTH ANTI-DRUG MEDIA CAMPAIGN WOULD BE ILL-ADVISED

(Washington, DC) -- White House National Policy Director Barry McCaffrey today said that proposals to include alcohol prevention in the paid portion of the ongoing National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign "could dilute the focus of the successful media campaign advertising effort to change attitudes of youth and parents toward illegal drug abuse."

McCaffrey stated, "We share a concern about the terribly serious problem of underage alcohol use. We do not disagree with the desirability of a media campaign targeted against underage drinking.
(Marijuananews note: From the Drug Czar’s own site: "The 1992 National Drug Control Strategy, issued by President Bush sharpened the focus of the nation’s strategy on the treatment and prevention of alcohol abuse, noted that drug prevention programs are more likely to succeed if they also address underage drinking, and stated that underage tobacco use is a gateway to other more harmful drugs…. Aggressive efforts to prevent underage use of tobacco and alcohol are essential to the prevention of illicit drug use.")

See
The Drug Czar’s Own Web Site Says,
"drug prevention programs are more likely to succeed if they also address underage drinking."

Behavioral scientists and youth and advertising experts advise us that our campaign will only be effective if we purchase a sufficient level of media exposure for each of our messages. The addition of paid alcohol ads—without new funds, staff and research—would only hamper the effectiveness of our campaign.

A commercial advertiser would not add a new product line to an advertising plan without increasing the advertising budget. We cannot simply add new alcohol messages without seriously endangering the effectiveness of the anti-drug youth campaign. There are several challenges that would make an anti-alcohol campaign an expensive proposition. Although at the initiation of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign there was a stockpile of illicit drug ads, there are very few ads currently available on underage drinking.

(Marijuananews note: Why have there been so few alcohol ads developed, if the Partnership was really as concerned about underage drinking as they now claim to be? A rhetorical question.)

See
"The Partnership is comprised primarily of advertising professionals,
who work for the very ad firms that produce the alcohol advertising
that the drug czar’s media campaign would counterbalance, if it included alcohol counter-ads.
The partnership was founded on alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical money."

We would need to develop and produce expensive new ads. Additionally, since alcohol is legal for adults, an effective anti-alcohol campaign would need an entirely different strategy than our existing media campaign, which has as its focus illegal substances.

(Marijuananews note: But alcohol is illegal for children. Besides, what difference would that make in warning children about the dangers of alcohol? Industrial solvents, inhalants, are legal for everyone, depending on how they are used. This is a pathetic argument.)

When ONDCP purchases time on national or local media, we negotiate to achieve a dollar-for-dollar matching contribution. Most of this contribution comes in the form of donated public service announcement slots in similar time periods. ONDCP then passes these PSA opportunities to organizations that have anti-drug messages. From July 1998 through January 1999, roughly 15% of television public service time given to the ONDCP Media Campaign was shared with four organizations confronting underage drinking and drunk driving (National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Recording Artists, Athletes and Actors Against Drunk Driving, and the Department of Transportation).

(Marijuananews note: Notice that most of these focus on drunk driving, a very worthy target. However, there is very little devoted to the other dangers of alcohol misuse, such as lethal overdoses from binge drinking.

The number of babies born every year with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome exceeds the number of young people killed every year by all of the illegal drugs combined by a wide margin. Young mothers-to-be would appear to be the perfect target for ads warning them about drinking.)
See
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome:
Media Reports Decry Effects Of Illegal Drugs Such As Marijuana, Cocaine And Heroin.
"They don’t have anywhere near the effect that alcohol does on the unborn baby."

These messages have played over 7000 times on local and network television, which is conservatively valued at $8 million.

(Marijuananews note: Compared with almost 200 million mostly about marijuana!)

In this concrete way, we have already generated the largest youth anti-alcohol media campaign in history.
(Marijuananews note: This boast would seem to contradict the claim that they do not have the ads.)
ONDCP has also used the match part of the campaign to urge networks to include anti-alcohol messages in entertainment programming. For example, the entire episode of WB’s Smart Guy that aired on May 16 concentrated on underage drinking."

We are now entering the second year of an increasingly successful youth anti-drug media campaign. Alcohol and tobacco use are clearly a major threat to the health and safety of our children. However, now is not the time to lose focus on the start of a massive, well designed and successful effort to reverse the disastrous increase in illegal drug use by American adolescents."

(Marijuananews note: Has it been as "disastrous as alcohol abuse? What is the basis for this statement?)