USA - Bush Wants Funding Jump for Anti-Drug Ads Rated as Useless

[Lunar Loops]

Dumb and dumber. This from www.politico.com :

Bush Wants Funding Jump for Anti-Drug Ads Rated as Useless
By: Ryan Grim
February 9, 2007 06:20 PM EST

President Bush has proposed a significant jump in funding for an anti-drug advertising campaign that government-funded research shows is at best useless and at worst has increased drug use among some teens.
The administration has asked for a 31 percent increase in funding for the advertising campaign that a nearly five-year study concluded had increased the likelihood that all teens would smoke marijuana. The White House proposal would increase the program's budget to $130 million over the next year.
Before the Democratic takeover of Congress, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was a top supporter of the anti-drug ad program. "It's Hastert's baby," said Bill Piper, national affairs director for the Drug Policy Alliance, which has long targeted the ad campaign. Hastert's office did not return calls requesting comment.
But with the former speaker relegated to the back bench, the ad campaign is vulnerable, and a more stark shift in its congressional oversight would be difficult to imagine.
Under the last Congress, oversight of the ad program fell to Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., easily the most vocal and fervent anti-drug crusader in Congress. That subcommittee is now chaired by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, a Democratic presidential contender, who has called to have marijuana legalized and regulated similarly to alcohol.
Additionally, Rep. José E. Serrano, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee, which controls spending on the ad campaign, is skeptical about the program.
"The proposed increase for the … media campaign is something that we will have to evaluate closely in light of a report by the GAO suggesting the campaign is ineffective. I intend to look into this issue," said Serrano in a statement to The Politico.
The program came under special scrutiny when the Government Accountability Office released its study results last August. The nearly five-year, $47 million study was conducted by Westat, based in Rockville, Md., for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Since 1998, the federal government has spent more than $1.4 billion on the campaign, through television and print ads. One memorable spot showed a stoned teenaged driver running over a little girl on a bicycle.
The bad study results weren't news to the White House, which sat on the research for a year and a half while continuing to fund the ad campaign on the basis that the study was still ongoing, Slate magazine reported in September. In October, National Journal reported that John Carnevale, former director of budget and planning for the drug czar's office, admitted that the office "did not like the report's conclusions and chose to sit on it."
The GAO-reviewed study found that "greater exposure to the campaign was associated with weaker anti-drug norms and increases in the perceptions that others use marijuana." In some categories, such as 14- to 16-year-olds, and among all white teens, more exposure to the ads led to higher rates of first-time drug use.
In 2003, the Office of Management and Budget evaluated the program and determined it showed virtually no results. The 6 percent score on the program's effectiveness forced the program to come up with an improvement plan. OMB's Web site still notes that the plan is "pending the receipt of the GAO report assessing the Media Campaign evaluation," which was received more than two years ago.
Martin Green, Souder's press secretary, said the congressman fully supports the increased funding for the ad campaign, but only so long as the ads combat methamphetamines as well as marijuana.
Souder's shift in emphasis away from marijuana signals a new approach by the federal government to the drug war -- though not necessarily a desire for lower funding.
"I think the pressure on meth will still be strong," said Green, emphasizing bipartisan congressional opposition to the drug. "Marijuana may be different."

[Woodman]

Typical fuck-ass bureaucrat!

"It ain't workin'. Let's throw more money at it."

A liberal democrat solution made by a RINO (Republican In Name Only), a "Neo-Con," by any other name.

[The Doors]

"One memorable spot showed a stoned teenaged driver running over a little girl on a bicycle."

Hahahaha, a person who has smoked marijuana before must've found this quite funny. It's hard to believe they still advertise dumb commercials as degenerated as these; I haven't seen a DEA commercial in a long time. In Canada, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) advertises a commercial where a kid is high and the pirate on the pack of zig zags begans to talk to him saying "if you are high, you can not drive"... I believe that is the proper approach to have while still having a sense of humour about it which the audience will be more receptive too.

[namooP]

Unless they were suggesting weed is hallucinogenic, which I wouldn\'t be suprised at. Weed, datura, same difference.SWIMs friend once decided to drive home stoned. Along the way he saw a dog which he decided he wanted to pet, so he did the obvious thing. He rolled down his window and pulled in really close to the curb to pet the dog, which was still walking down the street. Anyway, long story short he crashed, very slowly, into a ditch.

[Nature Boy]

Public warning adverts about marijuana use and driving are completely needless. The problem is pretty-much non-existent in the first place. Make some damn ads that might actually save lives for fuck's sake.

[Nagognog2]

When the movie: The Day After came out under Reagan (it was a powerful piece about the aftermath of a nuclear war, which was also distibuted behind the Iron Curtain nations/states), it was wrapped in with a anti-marijuana spot blaming everything from train-wrecks to nuclear war on people smoking pot. Reagan was a devout drinker of screwdrivers while in office (vodka & orange juice). Person I knew catered government dinners in the White House. Reagan would invariably drink until he passed-out and had to be helped from the dining hall to his crib for sleep.

[stoneinfocus]

So glad, a drug-freak like Timothy Leary was arrested for illegal possesion of dope, and sentenced to 6 years of prison (when a normal sentce for this was 6 moths on probation), just when he was about to be set up as a candidate for govener. -not imaginable what he would have done to this country.

[Nagognog2]

Probably would have dismantled the highway system and installed coast-to-coast roller-coasters...

[stoneinfocus]

I meanwhile really thinking, that forcing everyone into a lsd- or dom-trip would be the best thing for this world to happen.

[namooP]

Originally Posted by co-incidence

So glad, a drug-freak like Timothy Leary was arrested for illegal possesion of dope, and sentenced to 6 years of prison (when a normal sentce for this was 6 moths on probation), just when he was about to be set up as a candidate for govener. -not imaginable what he would have done to this country.

Didn\'t they do the same thing to Al Capone?

[stoneinfocus]

T. Leary ....One invented the a-bomb and held in honour, while the other, inventing things that could actually help is dismissed, incancerated, and put down in all possible ways.

[stoneinfocus]

T. Leary was an educated prof. at some of the highest regarded universities of the world, he was arrested, because he took responsibility for his daughter´s joints, when she was cought at the mexican border and was later arrested for two roaches, that were "found" in his car, after being called americans most dangerous man by Nixon and sentenced to jailtime and psychiatric treatement-astonishing, that he wasn´t lobothomised, like the others, if that wouldn´t have made him a martyr, I think he would have been "cured" .

Al Capone was a business man and a criminal in his aerea for serving the public demand on alcohol. He had weapons, no philosphy but a growth of his wealth and influence tro maintain his business, while T. Leary dindßt force anyone to do anything and pled onyl for selfdetermination and freedome of the mind and sprituality.

with all the pressureout on him we all could see, that he was forced into the role of a rebel, that onyl could speak for himself with the limited means that he was now possessing, nonetheless, he made it, because of the help of same minded and popular or rich friends in all sorts of business adn research, that was flowering in his time.
He was a researcher that broke with the general opinion on how "research" should be and to what and whom it shall serve, which was and mostly is the opinion of non-researchers and other compromised groups.
Funny thing is, the quote on his site is nearly the same as A. Einstein said
-question authority.

One invented the a-bomb and held in honour, while the other, inventing things that could actually help is dismissed, incancerated, and put down in all possible ways.

[Nicaine]

Nothing new or surprising... right-wing anti-drug people have always been idiots, starting with the "reefer madness" days (or maybe earlier). They're so transparently stupid, it's almost like they WANT people to notice, e.g. "nobody could be that unintentionally stupid." I mean, haven't they ever heard that all publicity is good publicity?

Keep on advertising drugs, guys, it'll get more people into drugs... good for membership here . You ever wanna discourage teen drug use, make it look like an ordinary/everyday activity performed by 50 year old men & overweight housewives.

[namooP]

Just to quickly clear something up, I didnt intend to compare Leary to Al Capone. Rather, they were given harsh sentences for relatively trivial offences because of lack of evidence for more serious ones. Really, it reflects the absurdity of Learys sentence.

[Figaro]

Well if this idea become as popular and as "effective" as the DARE program run by the Police Department, pretty soon most kids after high school will become all junkies.

1992 - Indiana University
Researchers at Indiana University, commissioned by Indiana school officials in 1992, found that those who completed the D.A.R.E. program subsequently had significantly higher rates of hallucinogenic drug use than those not exposed to the program.[9]

[edit] 1995 - California Department of Education

In 1995, a report to the California Department of Education by Joel Brown Ph. D. stated that none of California's drug education programs worked, including D.A.R.E. "California's drug education programs, D.A.R.E. being the largest of them, simply don't work. More than 40 percent of the students told researchers they were 'not at all' influenced by drug educators or programs. Nearly 70 percent reported neutral to negative feelings about those delivering the antidrug (sic) message. While only 10 percent of elementary students responded to drug education negatively or indifferently, this figure grew to 33 percent of middle school students and topped 90 percent at the high school level." [15]

2001 - Surgeon General categorizes D.A.R.E. "Does Not Work"
In 2001, the Surgeon General of the United States, David Satcher M.D. Ph.D., placed the D.A.R.E. program in the category of "Does Not Work."[5] The U.S. General Accountability Office concluded in 2003 that the program was sometimes counterproductive in some populations, with those who graduate from D.A.R.E. later having higher rates of drug use.[23]

[edit] 2007 - Perspectives on Psychological Science Article

In March of 2007, the D.A.R.E. program was placed on a list of treatments that have the potential to cause harm in clients in the APS journal, Perspectives on Psychological Science.[24]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Ab...ance_Education