Dana - 2007: Above the Influence

Above the Influence of Ineffective and Costly Anti-drug Programs 

A gruesome, squished girl speaks glumly of her bodily collapse to a midget under the pressure to do drugs. A distressed high school principal describes the epidemic of leeches plaguing his students, as hoards of juveniles attach the bloodsucking parasites to their bodies, an abstruse metaphor for the power of peer influence on teens. A physically flattened, boneless girl sits, glued to her couch, as her friend reports their entirely boring and uneventful lives since the now 2-dimensional girl began smoking marijuana.

Images such as these from the government’s latest anti-drug campaign, Above the Influence, have frequented the screens of the nation’s televisions for the past few years. The program, created for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign (a program of the Office of National Drug Control Policy), is focused on reducing drug use among teens; it encourages them to rise above the pressures present in their lives and to retain their individuality in a society flanked with peer influences and subtle messages from the media.  Hence the title: Above the Influence.  The program’s advertisements, now common on such stations as MTV, are certainly bizarre and take an alternative approach from anti-drug programs of the past; however, are they effective? Are they cost efficient? Do they employ professional and accurate techniques? These are logical questions that should be asked of any institution, and they lead to a greater question: Is the program necessary? In short answer, no.

Marijuana usage (that which Above the Influence primarily focuses on abolishing) among teens in the United States has increased since the program’s beginning. Enough said. Not effective. 

The campaign is expensive. Its budget has been recently increased to 160 million dollars per year (the largest anti-drug budget to date), and it has consumed a sum of 1.2 billion dollars in its years in place. Quite a ridiculous sum, especially in such economically unsound times. The money could be better spent on, perhaps, the public school system, or one of the many areas of our society in dire need of improvement. Or it could simply reduce its cost by refraining from extravagant and grotesque special effects. Not cost efficient. 

The campaign utilizes tactics that I would describe as less than ethical. In the advertisements themselves, gross exaggerations are made about the effects of certain drugs. For instance, I personally think it is an overstatement to depict marijuana users as flattened or squished, deformed creatures. I understand that the officials of Above the Influence are simply trying to further their point, that the outlandish characters are not supposed to be realistic, rather visual representations or metaphors for their arguments against the substances; however I think they have crossed the line between elaboration and overkill. Their portrayals of drug users are simply too dramatized to be taken seriously. Many people I have asked see the commercials as jokes because of their sheer distance from reality.

I visited the Above the Influence website for additional information on the program’s values and strategies. There are certain aspects of the site that further my belief in the campaign’s unprofessional nature. Many of the claims made in the “Drug Facts” and “Mythbusters” sections are sly and misleading. Take, for instance, this statement: “Teens age 12 to 17 who regularly smoke marijuana were shown to be three times more likely than non-users to have suicidal thoughts.” Following this is a link to the resource, (a recently conducted study) which provides the statistical evidence for the statement. Here is the problem: it is a case of cause and effect. It is difficult to know whether the marijuana causes the likelihood of suicidal thinking, or whether those people who are already thinking about killing themselves are more likely to smoke marijuana. I cannot scientifically conclude which of the two options it is (although I have a hunch it is the latter), and neither can they. Therefore, they should not imply that it is one way (which they really are doing, even if subtly), that smoking marijuana causes suicidal thoughts, when their statistic does not suggest so. There are similar cases of the manipulation of statistics and science throughout the site, regarding such issues as the relationship between marijuana smoking and depression, and the apparent high risk of cancer associated with the drug.

The program is, also, hypocritical. “Above the influence” refers to rising above all pressures and living one’s own life. Sounds fine, right. Here’s the issue: the officials of the program describe how teens should not take influences from the media into account when deciding what personal choices to make, and what kinds of people to become. Above the Influence is just that, an influence of the media. Its arsenal of advertisements is shown quite frequently on many stations, primarily those with a teenage audience base. They are guilty of their own accusations. - a catch 22; they simultaneously preach against the influences of the media, and are an influence of the media, taking hypocrisy to the next level. I believe that this logistical problem discredits the very essence of the program. Not professional.

Regardless of one’s feelings on anti-drug education as a whole, the program is inherently unnecessary. It is spending vast amounts of government cash to create ornate commercials that have proven ineffective in their quest to reduce drug usage among teens. Furthermore, it employs unprincipled tactics. This, in addition to furthering the uselessness of the program, undermines the integrity of the national government, perhaps the worst consequence of Above the Influence. The United States cannot afford such a blow to its decency, in particularly non-unified times, both internally and externally with wars abroad. The government should not allot yearly nine-digit figures to such a campaign. Its funding should be reduced, or the program should be dropped completely.