New $1-Billion Media Campaign to Continue Anti-Drug Message

President Clinton announced a new round of anti-drug advertisements Monday and said a media campaign launched in 1997 already has succeeded in reaching young people and their parents.

“If you’re a teenager or parent,” the president said, “it is nearly impossible to avoid seeing or hearing our anti-drug messages on television or radio several times a week.”

Begun in 1997, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign has grown from a 12-city pilot program to a national effort that claims to reach 90% of the country’s young people four to seven times a week.

The new campaign, a $1-billion, 5-year effort, is aimed at educating young people to reject drug use. It will use television, radio, the Internet, newspapers, magazines and bus and movie ads to reach young people, parents, teachers, mentors, coaches and others.

“We’re trying to be where the young kids are,” said Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Clinton said, “We expected the ads would greatly increase awareness. What we didn’t expect was that the ads would already have a measurable effect on attitudes. This is a very good sign. What it proves is, I suppose, what we should have known all along, that if advertising works in commerce and advertising works in politics, advertising ought to work on this issue as well.”

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said the campaign is “well-intentioned but incomplete. How can an ad campaign succeed when it ignores underage drinking, the No. 1 drug problem among teens? Alcohol kills six times more young people in this country than all illegal drugs combined.”

McCaffrey said there is not enough money in the $195 million allocated each year for anti-drug ads to include anti-alcohol ads.