On April 1, 1992, the Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies sponsored a conference called "Media Coverage of the Drug Crisis." The conference featured, among other things, two panel discussions on the media —one each on national and local venues — and their coverage of the drug crisis. The speakers' backgrounds varied over a range of professions and included the press secretary from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a CNN correspondent, the general manager of a Santa Barbara television station, a newspaper publisher, and an associate judge of the Superior Court in Washington, D.C.

At least one speaker in each panel raised the issue of whether the media should, in addition to reporting the news, participate in the anti-drug cause. One of the first speakers to raise this issue was David L. Rosenbloom, chairman and CEO of the Community Medical Alliance and Project Director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's community coalition support project "Join Together." Rosenbloom argued that, despite some inadequacies, war is an apt metaphor for drug policy, because success (a society free of illicit drug use) will only be possible with more reinforcements, such as community coalitions and the media, joining the fight against illegal drug use. He emphasized that this war would not be won by press releases alone.

There are many issues wrapped up in this statement. I would only like to point out that, while he is right that a policy is not accomplished by press coverage, it is not a full argument for the original proposition, namely, whether the press should participate in anti-drug efforts. I am not sure that his words (paraphrased here) were intended to be a full argument (particularly since he was not among people who would question many of the argument's premises), but the acceptance of the metaphor is worth noting. I will come back to this issue later.

During the second panel discussion, Paul S. Jellinek, Vice President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, revisited Rosenbloom's statement and asked whether the news media should "denormalize" illegal drugs in the way that the Partnership for a Drug-Free America does.

Unfortunately, there was not sufficient time in either panel to discuss this issue in more than the broadest outlines. I propose, therefore, to examine the question of the media's involvement with the drug war from a specific point of view, namely, from the perspective of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

The Partnership is a private, non-profit coalition of advertising and public relations companies that produces public service announcements about illicit drug use. As stated in its Fact Sheet, the Partnership's mission "is to reduce demand for illegal drugs by using media communication to help bring about public intolerance of illegal drugs, their use and users." Although the Partnership was not represented at the Annenberg conference and its mission was not explicitly mentioned outside ofJellinek's remark, the Partnership is a logical example of how the news media can participate in the drug war.

The Partnership is not to be easily confused with the news media. It is more like an advertising agency because it designs its message around the idea of influencing behavior. Unlike most of the advertising industry, the Partnership attempts to "unsell" (rather than promote) something. Today, five years after its first ad was aired, the Partnership has won widespread recognition for itself (one survey reported that 92 percent of American teenagers saw the "fried egg" ad). In 1988, the Partnership's campaign was rated as the eleventh most widely seen advertising program in the United States — the highest rating ever for a public service campaign.

Despite its visibility, the Partnership eludes much constructive public comment. The Partnership has been generally regarded by the mainstream media as unworthy of in-depth comment, even when a Partnership ad generates controversy or satire. Recently the sidestream media began to show an interest in the Partnership by publishing in-depth articles. Two such articles — one in Washington, D.C.'s City Paper and one in The Nation — have been published since December 1991 about the Partnership.

I will now turn to a brief summary of the Partnership's background before looking at how it approaches its goals and measure their success. Finally, I address the question about the media's and the Partnership's role in the drug war.

The Partnership For A Drug-Free America

In 1986, Phil Joanou, then chairman of the advertising company Daley & Associates, proposed to the American Association of Advertising Agencies ("AAAA") that advertisers produce public service announcements addressing the problems of illegal drug use. The AAAA agreed with the proposal and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America ("PDFA" or "Partnership") was founded that year with $300,000 seed money from the AAAA. The Partnership became a charitable corporation under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code and began soliciting donations for its ad campaign.'

In May 1989, James E. Burke joined the Partnership as its chairman. Burke, who resigned as chairman and CEO ofJohnson & Johnson to take the job, set a goal ofhaving the equivalent of $1 million per day in donated air time and print space for the Partnership's messages. With Burke came grant money and the Partnership exceeded its goal during the 1990 fiscal year. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropic organization that funds health issues, donated $3 million that year, and, over the next two years, the Partnership collected $4.7 million (or 38 percent) of the 10 largest foundation grants for anti-alcohol and anti-drug abuse endeavors.2

Since its inception, the Partnership has used committees to review the hundreds of ads that are submitted for consideration. The rejection rate has been reported to be about 80 percent.3 Partnership ads only mention three illegal drugs specifically: marijuana, cocaine hydrochloride, and crack.' The reason for this selection, according to the Partnership's spokespersons, is that these drugs are most likely to be glamorized in drug culture. Marijuana, for example, is popularly perceived as the gateway drug that leads to the (mis)use of other, more "dangerous," illegal drugs. The Partnership targeted cocaine because it was the popular throughout most of the 1980s. After 1985, crack earned notoriety because it was cheap and because it seemingly had a high addiction liability. Because crack cocaine enters the bloodstream in the lungs rather than through mucous membranes, it acts much faster on the brain. Although the practice of smoking cocaine was not new, the public was inundated with stories about the latest form of smokable cocaine as though it were a new practice.

The Partnership's Message

The Partnership's mission is to reshape "the entire social climate of approval or apathy about illegal drugs...."6To accomplish this goal, the Partnership has aimed its campaign at audiences of all but the youngest ages. The Partnership identifies three broad groups of people it hopes to reach through its ads: nonusers, occasional users, and "influencers" (e.g., parents, employers, health care professionals).6The Partnership tailors its ads for specific sub-groups of the population. Currently, Partnership "task forces" carve out messages that focus on health care professionals and on Hispanic and African-American audiences.

According to the Gordon S. Black Corporation, which was hired to track the effectiveness of PDFA ads, there are three objectives in the campaign:

• Communicating information about the consequences of drug use to the users and potential users.

• Motivating the non-users to take actions aimed at expressing their disapproval of drug use.

• Diminishing the attitudinal tolerance and acceptance that is part of the process by which drug use became "normalized" into our society.

It is worth noting that the Partnership does not
focus its message on the illegal drug addict. The campaign's primary tool is to generate intolerance toward illegal drugs and thereby reduce the rates of experimentation with those drugs. Implicit in this strategy is the idea that people who are already addicted to illegal drugs will not stop using them merely because they see advertisements encouraging them to do so.

How the Message's Effects are Measured

After its founding, the Partnership engaged the Gordon S. Black Corporation ("GSB Corporation") to measure the effectiveness of the ad campaign in changing public attitudes and behavior. The GSB Corporation's work was initially performed pro bono for the Partnership. The GSB Corporation solicited more than one hundred small research firms to conduct longitudinal research on a voluntary basis.' Black estimated that the donated research equalled about $500,000 by November 1989. (Starting in the 1991 fiscal year, the GSB Corporation continued its research under a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.8) The Partnership Attitude Tracking Study ("PAT Study") has consistently revealed trends in illegal drug use that roughly parallel the findings published in the other two national surveys — the National Household Study and the National High School Study — both of which are funded by NIDA.9

With the guidance of researchers from NIDA, the GSB Corporation developed a questionnaire and then administered the survey in several waves. The results are reported annually by the GSB Corporation in the PAT Study. The questionnaires were designed to appraise trends in anti-drug attitudes and the use of illicit drugs. The first wave of the survey was conducted in February-March 1987 and it provided a benchmark with which subsequent surveys would be compared (the first Partnership ad came out after the benchmark survey was completed). The GSB Corporation has consistently documented increasing intolerance of illegal drugs and a drop in the use of most of these drugs.'° By comparing markets that use Partnership ads frequently with markets that use little or no Partnership material, the GSB Corporation argues that the Partnership's campaign has had a measurable effect on both attitudes and behaviors concerning illegal drugs.

The PAT Study looks at three specific target groups: children nine to 12 years old; teenagers 13 to 17 years old; and adults 18 years and up (including a sub-sample of college students). The PAT Study is the only national sample of children between the ages of nine and 12.11 In 1990, the sample sizes included oversampling for African-Americans and Hispanics. Consequently, the sample was larger (8,293) than the samples of between 6,000 and 7,000 that were used in previous years of the PAT Study.12

The methodology for the tracking surveys is simple. According to the GSB Corporation, the questionnaires are distributed at central locations, "typically malls, where individuals are recruited according to specific quotas for age, race and sex."13

The PAT Study says that there is no definite causal link between the Partnership's campaign and anti-drug attitudes/behaviors; the PAT Study does demonstrate what the current trends are and suggests how the Partnership might fit into those trends. I turn now to an analysis of the Partnership's message and how its effectiveness is measured.

Limits of the Partnership

Except for the telephone numbers of certain treatment programs and mentions ofNIDA as a source, Partnership ads do not refer its audience to outside sources for more information about issues discussed in the ads. The Partnership's ads, then, are the primary tools for reshaping public opinion and behavior with regard to illegal drugs. In this section, I look at the PAT Study and what it says about the effectiveness of the Partnership's campaign, and I look at the limits of the Partnership's role in providing drug education.

Limitations of the PAT Study

The linchpin to the Partnership's ad campaign is the claim that advertising can change attitudes and behavior. (As I noted above, the Partnership limits the extent of this claim by not targeting hard drug addicts.) The problem is that there are many rival causal factors that can take at least some credit for the recent declines in overall drug use. How does the Partnership's campaign to "unsell" illegal drugs fit into this decline?

The GSB Corporation not only demonstrates trends that are in line with other national surveys, it also argues that the Partnership ads accelerate existing trends in disapproval and use of illegal drugs. For example, the PAT Study reports that, in 1990, 63 percent of adults surveyed "said that advertisements made them feel less favorable toward marijuana," and 75 percent reported the same feelings toward cocaine. The report went on to conclude that "[a]lthough it is not possible to estimate the exact contribution of any single effort to reduce drug use, it is clear that the observed changes in drug use correspond with observed changes in attitudes.""

This claim is not unique to the PAT Study. A 1990 white paper by the Office of National Drug Control Policy stated:

One of the most fascinating findings of the 1989 [High School Senior] survey is thecorrelation between the use of cocaine and marijuana by seniors and the perceived harmfulness of such use. Perceptions of the harmfulness of marijuana use increased steadily between 1980 and 1989, while seniors' reported use of the drug declined.

Likewise, as the perceived harmfulness of cocaine use started to rise in 1987, cocaine use among seniors began to decline. While several factors have obviously contributed to this phenomenon, it is important to note that efforts to educate our young people as to the dangers of drug use seem to be taking hold."

But what does this correlation tell us about the power of reported attitudes to change behavior? This question is difficult to answer. Even though the GSB Corporation claims that the Partnership ads accelerate the overall decline in illegal drug use," Gordon Black has acknowledged that, lilt's very hard to tweak out the role of advertising from general social trends.'" Advertising can only play a limited role. For example, the PAT Study observes that drug use is the product of demographics (e.g., race and age), "public attitudes, exposure to drugs, and individual life experiences."" The study goes on to state that it is "difficult to influence" one's life experiences, but it is comparatively easy to influence attitudes." In other words, the GSB Corporation does not know what behaviors the Partnership efforts are obtaining.

Furthermore, the PAT Study states that the questionnaires are answered by "willing participants." The PAT Study notes that certain groups (e.g., prisoners, the homeless, people living in group housing groups that are likely to include chronic drug users) may be under-represented in the survey. The PAT Study projects its findings on to the national population by weighting its survey responses.

There are still other factors not mentioned by either the Partnership or the GSB Corporation that might play a role in the overall trend of these data. One example is the trend toward more healthful diets and lifestyles, which has produced lighter alcoholic beverages and low-tar cigarettes. The cause of this trend toward salubrity is also difficult to "tweak out" from the interplay of advertising (for more healthful foods and beverages), the bully pulpit of the Surgeon General, and other sources of information.

Another reason is more obscure still. An increase in anti-drug advertising in an area also creates a higher probability that more respondents are biased (either prejudiced against illicit drug use or suspicious of revealing personal information about drug use honestly). The GSB Corporation does not say how it attracts people to answer its mall-intercept surveys other than ensure that certain demographic quotas are met. Assuming that the researchers do not attract people who are fixated on the drug issue to fulfill age, race, and sex quotas, there is the problem of the recursive effect: people tend to treat surveys with some amount of culturally instilled bias rather than knowledge about personal behavior. Furthermore, antidrug ads within the climate of the (constantly) renewed war on drugs may encourage under-reporting in all the national surveys about drug use. These considerations do not invalidate these surveys; rather, my point is that there are rival causal factors that should temper the claims made by the researchers.

One final problem with the methodology of the PAT Study is that the cities, which are included in the tracking study, are not deliberately chosen to provide a representative sample of the U.S. population. The PAT Study surveys the "high media markets" — those markets that have run Partnership ads most frequently. This aspect of the study, then, is guided more by specific broadcast and print organizations' decisions to allocate public interest time and space than by a concern for creating a representative sample. Black points out that the markets in the study comprised about half of the U.S. population and the GSB Corporation weighted them accordingly in the sample."

The PAT Study's support of the Partnership thus is weakened from the number of built-in qualifications. Considering that the trends discovered in the PAT Study are based completely on reported attitudes and behavior, it is difficult to apply any scientific certainty to the GSB Corporation's or the Partnership's claims.

One final note: The PAT Study nowhere discusses the idea that people may choose to use drugs on their own terms. The reason this factor cannot be listed in the PAT Study is that there is no measure of how a single person may choose to act unless the researcher looks at group characteristics (such as age, sex, and race) and then treats these characteristics as determinative of individual behavior. The most the researchers acknowledge is that a person's life (i.e., behavior) is "difficult to influence."2' (Of course, this factor belies the claim that there can ever be an America that is "drug-free" in the sense that the Partnership uses the phrase.)

Limits of the Medium

Much of the power and support for the Partnership's mission rests on the belief that the advertising industry can shape lifestyles. Even though the instrument used to measure the Partnership's campaign has limited usefulness, the amount of private donations attests to the prevalence of the belief in the power of public service advertising. Advertising may not be able to change deeply entrenched behaviors, but they can help orient a person who is confronting a new experience. (Hence, the Partnership's reasoning for not targeting drug addicts.) In his examinations of public service announcements ("PSAs"), Sociologist Glenn K. Hirsch pointed out that public interest messages must not ignore social rules. PSAs can only suggest slight changes in behavior. Hirsch noted, for example, that parents will be more inclined to adopt a certain parenting behavior if it can be shown that the behavior is "consistent with the social form of `parental responsibility.'"

Hirsch based his arguments on his studies of the Advertising Council, the predecessor to the Partnership's campaign of trying to change public opinion and behavior through an advertising campaign. The Ad Council began as the War Advertising Council in 1942 to aid the domestic preparation for World War II. Immediately before America's involvement in the war, the advertising industry had met to discuss its role in the business community during the Great Depression. According to Hirsch, the advertising industry was understandably concerned about possibly being blamed for wasting the shrinking corporate capital of American businesses on frivolous marketing ventures. During a meeting of advertising and broadcast industries in November 1941, the director of the Federal Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce fought back against this threat of being scapegoated:

Let us not ask ourselves whether we as an industry do not have a great contribution to make in this effort to regain for business the leadership of the economy. We have within our grasp the greatest means of mass education and persuasion the world has ever seen, namely, the channels of advertising....

... [Advertising] ought to be the servant of art, of literature and of all forces of righteousness even more so than it already is.22

The Ad Council was formed shortly thereafter in New York City by various corporate members of the media world. Since World War II, the Ad Council has survived as a non-profit, private corporation to address issues ranging from forest fires and air pollution to the racial riots of the late 1960s ("Put your racial problems on the table — keep them off the streets"23).

The Ad Council, as an independent organization, is largely non-partisan in its politics. But, Hirsch pointed out that the Ad Council is in fact protecting the interests of corporate America. In his 1975 article, Hirsch demonstrated the network of interlocking corporate support that funded the Ad Council. Hirsch argued that corporate interests drove the Council to support ads exhorting individual action rather than corporate responsibility for poorly made products or environmentally hazardous production standards."

The Partnership is similarly indebted to its supporters. The Partnership's message nowhere mentions, for instance, the problems with the non-medical use of prescripti on drugs or the underage use of alcohol and tobacco. According to its 1991 Form 990 submitted to the IRS, the Partnership receives a considerable amount of support from the prescription and the legal drug industries. Between 1988 and 1991, prescription drug manufacturers and their beneficiaries25 donated $1,815,000 to the Partnership. Philip Morris, Anheuser-Busch, RJR Reynolds, and American Brands — all makers of alcohol and/or tobacco products — contributed a combined $550,000 to the Partnership over the same time span.26

Because there is no objective standard for the content of PSAs, alternative or critical messages often do not air in the PSA venue. The result is that the Partnership's assertions about marijuana and cocaine are largely unchallenged within the same media venues. Hirsch wrote that the Ad Council's campaigns reinforce and "channel existing values, while simultaneously preventing groups with a different ideology from presenting their interpretation of events." By parity of reasoning, the Partnership's advertising does work to the advantage of the makers of prescription and legal drugs. In the case of pharmaceutical drugs, the Partnership's ads do not mention or otherwise indicate the potential rival uses of marijuana as a medicine, just as they do not mention the legitimate medical uses of cocaine. In the case of recreational drugs, the Partnership advertises, in effect, against having chemical competitors to alcohol and tobacco.

Furthermore, the Partnership's advertising policy concentrates on the effects and harms of marijuana, cocaine, and crack in a vacuum — no other drugs are discussed in a way that would develop a frame of reference. The vacuum is virtually air-tight since the Partnership does not publicize retractions of or corrections to false ads. So far, the media and the public have weeded out the patent inaccuracies in the Partnership's message."

Clearly, these criticisms go beyond the bounds of the Partnership's focused strategy. To have a measurable effect, particularly among attitudes, the Partnership message must be dramatic and direct. This strategy, of course, calls into question the educational content of the ad campaign.

Conclusion: The Partnership and the Drug War

The media's role in the drug war — as objective bystander or as fresh reinforcements — is a topic that lacks adequate public debate. But the Partnership has already encouraged some in the media to take sides. Peter Jennings of ABC News appears in a Partnership collection of its TV ads. Jennings notes that the media "have all joined as partners dedicated to the proposition that not one more person should start using illegal drugs."28 Katherine Graham, chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the Washington Post Company, also appears in a compilation of Partnership ads. She states, "[w]e in the media must all get together and do something about this [illegal drug] problem ...."29 James Burke, who, in addition to heading the Partnership, also chairs of the President's Drug Advisory Council, sits on the Board of Directors with Graham. Partnership ads were the first full-page PSAs in The Washington Post."

The Partnership has described its ads as "educational anti-drug messages" designed "to denormalize cultural perceptions" about illegal drugs." NIDA's funding of the PAT Study clearly indicates the government's agreement with that campaign.
But, consider the following incident. Because of the amount of conflicting drug research, Theresa Grant, Vice President of Public Relations for the Partnership, stated recently that the Partnership changed the emphasis in its marijuana ads. Instead of portraying the drug as necessarily unhealthful, Partnership ads began to project an "uncool image" of the drug. This tactical change in the ad campaign illustrates the educational limits of the advertising medium: only one overall theme can fit into an ad campaign; conflicting evidence about or partial support of the theme are not persuasive.

But, the Partnership's material is only educational in the drug-war sense of the word, which is to say it is not educational at all. Education about public policy, even about health practices, requires some complexity, some depth of discussion. Theresa Grant unintentionally confirmed this point with some humor when she told Blow that the Partnership "decided to use one-minute spots because you can really talk about the issues in depth, which you can't do in 15- or 30-second spots."32

PSAs do not make good education, but they do make good exhortations. Hirsch wrote that the PSA "works best when used to reinforce an already existing notion or to establish a logical or emotional connection between a new idea and a social norm." By convincing the print and broadcast people that Partnership ads are PSAs, the Partnership has virtually eliminated responses to its message in the public-service-announcement venue. It appears that persons and organizations with messages that are at odds with the Partnership's assumptions must pay for the air time or the print space.33

It is not a coincidence that the Ad Council was born during the height of the second world war. It is also not a coincidence that the Partnership was born during the height of the latest drug war. The reason, in David Boaz's words, is that "[o]utside of wartime it is very difficult, indeed impossible, to rally free citizens around a common aim." The Partnership's message is afforded more latitude (and less criticism) because of the war-like terms of American drug policy. For the most part, the Partnership nurtures the exigency of this metaphor by going out of its way to target youth.

An example of how the Partnership blends its assumptions about certain drugs and care for the welfare of our nation's youth can be found in the "African-American Campaign Strategic Plan." Under the heading "Drug Messages," the plan describes how it will present the target drugs to the intended African-American audience.

Because each drug has different effects, images and methods of use, they will be addressed individually. This is more effective than a generic, "drugs are bad" approach. Although crack is actually cocaine, its product form, delivery system, price, image and effects are different and it is therefore addressed separately in the advertising. The advertising stresses the following about each drug:

MARIJUANA: Harmful effects on memory, concentration, motivation and learning; its role as a "stepping stone" to other drugs; the severe apathy it induces in chronic users, and the fact that the marijuana of today is as much as 60 times stronger than
the pot of 20 years ago.

CRACK: It is terribly addictive (as many as half are addicted on first use); cheap, readily available and often sampled free.

COCAINE: Psychologically addicting; expensive; destroys your health, motivation, lifestyle and relationships.34

There is no need for pharmacological complexities or discussion about how drugs affect people in different ways. The goal is zero tolerance because an extreme attitude affects behavior best. But the problem with extreme tactics and misinformation about drugs is that it can backfire when used to educate an uninformed audience. Education must be grounded on honesty and respect for those who need to learn. In this way, people will not discover that they have been lied to for their own good and they will be more likely to trust the information and, by extension, their own judgments about drugs.

The point is that there is more to drug education than, in Thomas Szasz's words, a "carpet bombing of the American consciousness with drug laws and drug lies...."

Until the language of drug policy is changed to eliminate the inappropriate applications of the war metaphor, drug education will never progress beyond infantilizing all who want to use and need to learn about drugs. The reason is that the drug war is defined and maintained by "certain characteristic, tactical abuses of our language"35 which have nothing to do with finding ways to cope with currently illegal drugs as we cope with other chemicals such as (legal) poisons. Until the media understands the power of popular metaphors to misinform, the news will only be an advertisement for the drug war.

Rob Stewart is the assistant director of public information at the Drug Policy Foundation.

Endnotes

'I must note here that part of this discussion requires my using conventional rhetoric about certain illegal drugs and the personal events and social patterns that are involved in the manufacture, possession, sale, and use of these drugs. I will try to steer away from ambiguous uses of metaphor in my discussion, but will concede occasionally to conventional use in the proper context (and hopefully without the use of scare quotes).
'Reported in Levine (1991), p. 116.
3Cited in Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (1991), p. 1. 'The AAAA is a trade association and is tax-exempt under § 501(cX6) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. See IRS Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax, for fiscal year beginning April 1, 1990, and ending March 31, 1991 (dated Aug. 31, 1991), Schedule A, p. 5, line 52.
5The Partnership currently is an affiliate of the AAAA, which the Partnership reimburses for rent, personnel, and other administrative services.
°Last year, the Partnership reported to the Internal Revenue Service that it received $377 million in "donated services or the use of materials, equipment, or facilities...." IRS Form 990 for fiscal year ending March 31, 1991, p. 4, lines 82a & 82b.
7Cotts (1992), p. 302 ("the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation accelerated a trend: the channeling of foundation money into public awareness" campaigns).
°Levine (1991), p. 116.
°Cocaine hydrochloride is the form of cocaine that is commonly ingested by sniffing. Because coca paste is too unstable to travel long distances, it is converted into cocaine hydrochloride in Latin America for export. To smoke cocaine (and thereby achieve a swifter, more powerful high) the cocaine hydrochloride must be treated with a liquid base to remove the hydrochloric acid. The cocaine base can then be crystallized by dissolving it in a solvent such as ether or by allowing the base to dry into what is now called crack (a relatively slower process than using a flammable solvent). 10PDFA, "Hispanic Task Force Strategic Plan" (not dated), p. 6.
150 Chapter Three
"PDFA, Fact Sheet (undated).
"Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (1991), p. 1. "The information in this and the next paragraph are derived from the transcript of a speech given by Gordon Black at a White House conference. Black (1989); see also Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (1991).
"See Annual Financial Report for year ending March 31, 1991, Notes to Financial Statements, p. 6, note 4. "Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (1991), p. 2, 3-6. "See id.
"Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (1991), p. 2. p. 7.
"Id., p. 8.
2°Id., p. 19.
211d., p. 20.
220NDCP, "Leading Drug Indicators" (Sept. 1990), p. 23.
One might object that this claim is not perfectly true since NIDA surveys also report that the frequent use of cocaine (at least once a week) has increased in recent years (ONDCP (1990), p. 10). The Partnership's response to this observation is that it is not directing its message to the frequent users of drugs, even if it is frequent use of a drug targeted by the Partnership, like cocaine.
"Quoted in Blow (1991), p. 32.
25Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (1991), p. 70. 261 d .
271d., p. 9.
"Black (1989), pp. 7-8.
26 Id., p. 9.
"Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (1991), p. 70. 31Hirsch (1975), p. 78 (citation omitted).
"Quoted in id., p. 73 (no citation in text).
33Domhoff (1978), p. 185.
34 I d . , pp. 66-67.
35These companies are, in order of most money given: the J. Seward Johnson Sr. Charitable Trusts ($1,100,000); E.I. DuPont de Nemours ($150,000); the Proctor & Gamble Fund ($120,000); the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation ($110,000); Johnson & Johnson ($110,000); SmithKline Beecham ($100,000); the Merck Foundation ($75,000); and Hoffman-LaRoche ($50,000). See also Cotts (1992), p. 302. 36See also id.
9-Iirsch (1975), p. 79.
38See Sevareid (1990) and Vacon (1990) mentioning that the EEG machine, which was allegedly measuring the brain waves of a 14-year-old boy who had just smoked marijuana, was not measuring that at all; the May 1990 Scientific American pointed out that a Partnership print ad overestimated the number of people who had used cocaine. Blow (1991, pp. 31-32) discussed several Partnership PSAs with Herbert Kleber of ONDCP, who disavowed or qualified many of the Partnership's claims about marijuana, cocaine, and crack.
39Quoted in Blow (1991), p. 29.
p. 36.
'IRS Form 990, p. 2.
"Financial Report for year ending March 31, 1991, Notes to Financial Statements, p. 6, note 4. See NIDA grant documents.
"2), p. 301.
"Blow (1991), p. 30.
"Hirsch (1975), p. 78.
"This is not to say that public service air time and print space are not up for sale. During the Annenberg Program's media conference, the vice-president and general manager of KEYT-TV in Santa Barbara confessed that her station had been in denial about illegal drug use. By airing news broadcasts of inner-city violence and the arrests of minorities in the drug trade, her station was denying that the majority of illegal drug use occurred in the middle-class suburbs. Citing the "grave responsibility" to make her community better, Benton created "Fighting Back: Addiction and Denial," which are weekly PSAs designed to balance racially the drug war coverage. The inspiration for "Fighting Back": the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation conditioned a grant to the station on the PSA series. "Boaz (1991), p. 35.
"PDFA, "African-American Campaign Strategic Plan" (Oct. 1989), p. 2 (emphasis in original).
"Szasz (1992), p. 91.
51Szasz (1985), p. 12.

Bibliography

"An Antidrug Message Gets Its Facts Wrong," Scientific American (May 1990), p. 36.
Richard Blow, "This is the Truth, This is the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, This is What the Partnership for a Drug-Free America Does to the Truth," Washington City Paper (Dec. 6-12, 1991), 11:29-37.
David Boaz, "Journalists and the Drug War," Liberty (May 1991), 4:35-38.
Cynthia Cotts, "Hard Sell in the Drug War," The Nation (March 9, 1992), 254:300-302.
Glenn K. Hirsch, "Only You Can Prevent Ideological Hegemony: the Advertising Council and its Place in the American Power Structure," The Insurgent Sociologist (Spring 1975), 5:64-82.
Joshua Levine, "Don't Fry Your Brain," Forbes (Feb. 4, 1991), pp. 116-117.
Susan Sevareid, "Taking Pot Shots," City Pages (April 25, 1990).
Bob Vacon, "Untruths, Unreliable Data Create Obstacles in War on Drugs," The Hartford Courant (May 28, 1990), pp. Al & A6.
G. William Domhoff, The Powers That Be: Processes of Ruling Class Domination in America, New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
Thomas Szasz, Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of D rugs, Addicts, and Pushers (revised edition), Holmes Beach, Fla.: Learning Publications, Inc. (1985).
Thomas Szasz, Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1992.
Perverted Perceptions 151
Gordon S. Black, The Impact of Partnership Advertising on Drug Users," transcript of speech given at White House conference (Nov. 2, 1989).
The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control (Controlled Substances) Act of 1970, Pub. L. 91-513, 84 Stat. 1236, 21 U.S.C. § 801-896 (1982).
The Gordon S. Black Corporation, "Partnership Attitude Tracking Study" (1991).
The Office of National Drug Control Policy, "Leading Drug Indicators" (Sept. 1990).