the effect of anti-drug ads on high school students behavior

[bud.lightyear]

Hello everyone, I'm making this thread to try to get a bit of help on a research project i am doing at uni. I am studying education (secondary) and am in my third year so for a class all i have to do is some sort of research project.

as of now the question i am asking is this:
what is the effect of the national drug campaign, the TAC's safe driving campaign, and the anti tobacco campaign on high school students behavior?

As a major part of this is going to be literature review, i am wondering if anyone has any resources and/or thoughts that they could share with me?
Every media campaign has tons of studies done before/during/after the campaign to measure effectiveness and target audience, yet these seem to be fairly buried, especially the drug campaign surprise surprise.
TAC is pretty forward with their data, as it seems that these ads do in fact work.

as of now after interviewing a few students (as well as my preconcieved notions) the main point i am making is that the messages sent out by the ads do not mesh with students' real world experiences. If an ad is telling kids that "you take a pill and you'll die," yet that kid goes to an event and sees 10,000 people peking duck absolutely fine, they begin to not believe anything that the ads or responsible people (teachers) say. and what do they do when they dont trust other people's information? find out for themselves, which is clearly the worst possible scenario. so i'm trying to say that these ads are detrimental to their aims, as adolescents are instilled with this sense of distrust and therefore will find out for themselves.

any information or thoughts that people have on this issue would be greatly appreciated. media articles are fine as well, just trying to collect as much info as i can. Anyone know of any other studies along similar lines?

thanks everyone for your help, i know that this issue is quite big, and pretty sure we all think the same thing: they're straight up bogus. So any help getting materials to support that would be mad!

 

[phase_dancer]

as of now after interviewing a few students (as well as my preconcieved notions)....... so i'm trying to say that these ads are detrimental to their aims, as adolescents are instilled with this sense of distrust and therefore will find out for themselves.

Careful, from those words it sounds like your degree of impartiality is rather compromised. How many students have you interviewed so far, what was your recruitment strategy and selection criteria etc? I'm not saying I disagree with your presumptive statements, only that to be impartial, good science requires you to at least wait until you have an outcome i.e. all the data is collected and an analysis done.

 

[PsiloSubNaut]

P_D would keep them pesky drug taking kids on the straight and narrow

Interesting choice of research project bud. I agree with P_D that you should wait until you have all of your data before making presumptions, even if it does seem black and white. I try to speak to as many teenagers as I possibly can about this issue and if anything, they feel more lied to than when I was at school.

With more and more unknown or adulterated substances hitting our streets, the consequences of continued lying to kids about drugs is only getting more dangerous by the day. The young generation have more access to information than ever before. Anything and everything can be researched in a heart beat online.

I know that my researching lead me to read about and then try other drugs that I would never have heard of otherwise (at least not for many more years). I'm sure I'm not the only person that this has happened to. How many kids are simply looking up info on pot and then find out about research chemicals that you can order straight to your house?

It seems that our society always needs a boogey man and drugs will continue to be touted as such unless we see some major changes. I'm not holding my breath...

I recently heard from a high school teacher that smoking in female teens is on the rise so you may want to research that for the anti smoking part.

Safe driving campaigns have been shown to have some success. We do need to implement mandatory defensive driving courses for all learner drivers. You should not be able to get your probationary license without knowing how to properly control a motor vehicle. The amount of people who die every year due to not being able to control a car in a slide is sad. I have lost friends this way and to think that simply knowing how to counter steer a sliding car would have saved their lives just doesn't sit well. For most Australian's, the most dangerous weapon that you will ever have in your control is a car. Don't forget that.

 

[TripppAR]

The most dangerous weapon is the truth.

 

[bud.lightyear]

Careful, from those words it sounds like your degree of impartiality is rather compromised. How many students have you interviewed so far, what was your recruitment strategy and selection criteria etc? I'm not saying I disagree with your presumptive statements, only that to be impartial, good science requires you to at least wait until you have an outcome i.e. all the data is collected and an analysis done.

fair enough, i can see why you would draw that conclusion, and be unsettled by it's implications. My other degree is science so i fully recognize the importance of unbiased work.
but yea i have spoken to my tutor about this, and a full scale wide spread study was not really possible. Instead i am talking to around 30 students, and mainly getting their impressions of the programs and what they think the pitfalls are. getting people was fairly easy, basically just went around at lunch time and spoke to a health class without the teacher there. i may have been biased in my selection of people to talk to (not in the health class but at lunch), but my aim is to highlight the people and reasons why the program may or may not fail people.

in highlighting their comments, i am looking more at statements about this distrust that these programs instill, because that is what has the most implications for teachers. because its education, i am allowed to be a bit bias so as to highlight what it means for teachers, because we definitely get huge effects from the lack of trust.

hopefully that explains it a bit. reading academic education journals is a fair way from the science ones i have read throughout my science degree. mainly just trying to focus on that because it has the most implications for teachers.
sorry pretty bent atm, hope that makes some sense. will have a read over it tomoz.

 

[bud.lightyear]

With more and more unknown or adulterated substances hitting our streets, the consequences of continued lying to kids about drugs is only getting more dangerous by the day. The young generation have more access to information than ever before. Anything and everything can be researched in a heart beat online.


I recently heard from a high school teacher that smoking in female teens is on the rise so you may want to research that for the anti smoking part.


Safe driving campaigns have been shown to have some success. We do need to implement mandatory defensive driving courses for all learner drivers. You should not be able to get your probationary license without knowing how to properly control a motor vehicle. The amount of people who die every year due to not being able to control a car in a slide is sad. I have lost friends this way and to think that simply knowing how to counter steer a sliding car would have saved their lives just doesn't sit well. For most Australian's, the most dangerous weapon that you will ever have in your control is a car. Don't forget that.

it's funny there were 3 or 4 kids that when i showed them the ad about making pies with dog food (won the competition recently, haven't actually seen it on air yet) they said "but doesn't that just say we should make it legal so that ecstasy isn't made like that anymore?" pretty perceptive ones out there....

as for smoking in girls it definitely seems to me to be a fair few of them, havne't really been around long enough to say much about the ol' days. i was at an all girls school for placement, a lot of them reckoned that girls were smoking lots because of what guys thought of it. seems more slutty, bit of a party girl, not as much of a prude, which is what they wanted to seem like at parties and what not. i guess drunk guys dont really care if they taste like an ash tray lol.

too true about the car being the most dangerous weapon. i totally agree, you should see whats it like in the US its horrible how little people have to do to get their license. and how young as well....learner's at 15 1/2, with no regulations and no plates to put up, just have to have an adult in front seat. 6 months later you go for the test, potentially never haven driven an hour cuz they dont check, answer a few multiple choice questions youd have to be dead to fail, and then drive around the block and reverse park not even paralel. rediculous how little there is here, even worse there
students i spoke to cited their parents reminding them of the ads "oh you remember what could happen if you speed, you saw the ad", as effective. the problem with them is that the message is short lived, people forget too quick so its important that people (adults) keep reminding them of the ads and consequences.
and of course (unfortunately) everyone responds to a fine. pretty much all said the main thing keeping them from breaking the law on the road was being caught.

farkkkkk another rant, see above post and u'll see why. gotta lot of proofreading/sensemaking to do tomorrow....

 

[static_mind]

Didnt johnboy do an interview on hack or something where he got some politition to admit the adds were a waste of money?

 

[thestudent14]

I'd be curious to see a basic outline of the questions you are asking the kids.
It's important that you state clearly your intentions from the survey.

For example if the aim is
A: To reduce drug use in young people.
B: To give young people a better understanding of drug use and it's health affects.
C: To see a correlation between how affective these adds are for teenagers versus adults.
etc.

This is something that appeals to me personally as it is something I ponder over often, perhaps you could send me a copy of what you have done so far and I could send some tips

 

[SDforever420]

When i was a lil kid and would see these kind of ads on tv i always told myself i dont wanna be that guy. But here i am. Posting on bluelight. I think as i got older i realized that most the ads are bull. the ones about pot anyway. I never sunk into my couch. or herd my dog talk. They fill the anti weed ads wit so much mis info in my opinion. I laugh at them actually. Now...these new anti meth ads are onto something i think. Cuz that CAN happen to anyone. But your dog talkin to you come on. who was smokin the joint when they came up wit that one.

 

[acidprime]

I was a complete straighty at school.... Anti-drugs, Anti-Alcohol etc, i even used to give pot smoking friends shit about their choice.

I seen the shit the school passed around that was "drugs are bad" etc, sat in the PE classes where they talked about stimulants and depressants... you know what, i didnt even care because at the time, i wasn't interested in drugs at all, those phamplets went in the bin and the talks went in one ear and out the other.

In fact, i didn't drink until i was 20 (which really, made me interested in alternate states, alcohol the real gateway drug?), then i tried pot .. then boom, researched my heart out about taking LSD, shit bricks for ages, tried it one day and the rest is history.

I now have the stance that drugs are ok aslong as you are highly educated about their effects, dangers and addiction potential.

So, I think, to the kids that arn't interested in drugs, these ads are useless, to the kids that are using drugs already, think the ads are bullshit.
Answer = they are bullshit... EDUCATION in the pros and cons from a neutral view is the only way.

 

[Jakeperson]

I remember being a drug taker and being in school, every add I saw made me say "mmm *insert whichever drug here* "

 

[bud.lightyear]

so heres a little update:

i have called the national drug campaign sooo many times this week. for 3 days in a row (friday, monday, and tuesday) they didn't answer their phone and went to voicemail saying "opening hours 830-530 m-f australian easter, call back during these times." left numerous messages over these 3 days, when i was calling for 3-6 hours during opening times.
finally got onto someone, and she acted like it was something unheard of asking for the information i was. she had to speak to her supervisor in the morning, and then they'd get back to me.

all the next day again no answer untill 5 (started calling at 11am) and she finally picked up and told me i'd been emailed. the email listed two websites:
all info available for public viewing are here: http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/internet/drugs/publishing.nsf/Content/about-campaign
and all effectiveness reports are available here:
http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/internet/drugs/publishing.nsf/Content/past-campaigns

i haven't finished going through it, but note that only ONE out of FOUR campaigns is available, and its only a phone survey of 1400 people, and it looks like its only about 1 ice ad.


when the hell is someone going to care about "ending labor's wasteful spending" when this is going on? their own organisation cant even justify their own existence, surely theres got to be some sort of freedom of information or something to get this stuff.....

 

[Mr. Squiggle!]

Dude, be careful when interviewing students. Make sure that they are fully aware of the research that's being conducted, otherwise you'll fail the course. Deception, I think it's called.

My guess would be for you to make some A4 paper copies and place them around near high schools and what not, and say something along the lines of "You could win a free prize if you come to an interview, so call ........... now to book your interview time/date with me!"

And the prize is, a fat spliff.

Peace.