Journal Article
National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and School-Based Drug Prevention
Jan 1, 2006
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Since it first "went national" in 1998, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign (the Campaign) has aired a slew of anti-drug messages in paid and donated advertising across a full range of media. But while a multiyear evaluation showed that the Campaign raised exposure to anti-drug media messages among youth, it also showed that the Campaign had no favorable effect on marijuana use—one of its key targets.
But what happens when exposure to the Campaign is combined with a school-based drug prevention curriculum? Because the first year of the Campaign's full implementation phase fortuitously coincided with the ninth-grade year of a trial of Project ALERT Plus—a drug prevention curriculum for middle school students that has been recognized as an exemplary program by the Department of Education and as a model program by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention—RAND Corporation researchers were able to answer that question. The results are promising:
The results suggest that the effects of anti-drug messages and school-based drug prevention are broadest and most substantial when both are delivered in tandem.
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