Joined by the head of the National Medical Association and the owner of a black-owned advertising firm, John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, announced yesterday a new ad campaign that encourages black parents to take stronger steps to stop their children from experimenting with marijuana.
The series of radio, television and print ads — created by Carol H. Williams Advertising, a firm based in Oakland, Calif. which has clients that range from Allstate to Coors to Frito Lay to the NAACP — were created in the wake of a study which indicated that some black parents are resigned to the fact that their teenagers might use marijuana.
The radio ads are 30- and 60-second spots, and the television ads are “very powerful,” NMA President Dr. Winston Price told BlackAmericaWeb.com. He attended the Detroit press conference to announce the ads along with Walters. They feature parents interacting with their children and pumping them for details about what they’re doing, when and with whom.
There are no celebrities in the ads, and that’s by design.
“We wanted it to reflect the community,” Price said, “so that when parents looked at it they could see themselves.”
Also attending the conference were Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Mark Carter, the executive director of the National AfterSchool Association, Warlene Gary, the chief executive officer of the National PTA and Doreen Turk White, the executive director of the Empowerment Zone Coalition.
The ads are designed to give black parents a much-needed dose of empowerment, Price said.
“Focus groups were held in different urban settings in which African-American parents were asked why drug use persists,” Price said. “Some parents threw up their hands and said ‘all the kids are using [marijuana].’ That was their defeatist attitude.”
Such attitudes inspired the slate of new ads, as did some sobering statistics. According to a 2003 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study, marijuana use is declining among whites but shows no change in use among black and Hispanic teenagers. Black youth still use legal and illegal drugs far more infrequently than their white counterparts, however.
A National Survey on Drug Use and Health study in 2003 found that among blacks aged 12 to 17, one out of six admitted using marijuana at least once. The same study showed that nearly 55 percent of blacks in the same age group said that marijuana is “fairly or very easy to obtain.”
Price warned black parents not to buy into the notion that marijuana is a “harmless” drug, which may account for some of them being resigned to their children using it.
“The marijuana today is more potent and tainted with other drugs,” Price said. “This marijuana in this day and age is not OK.” Even untainted marijuana, Price stressed, is not safe.
“Marijuana alone contains many of the same chemicals contained in tobacco,” he said, “so there is damage to the lungs. People who use it have panic attacks and depression. It impairs learning and decreases motivation. Individuals who use marijuana early are more likely to go on to use alcohol and other drugs later. Seventy-two percent of African-Americans who seek go to substance abuse treatment are going for marijuana.”
Dr. Phillippe Cunningham, a clinical psychologist who is also an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, acts as an advisor to the ONDCP. Cunningham said that chronic marijuana users may end up with bronchitis. There are other drawbacks as well.
“Marijuana affects certain areas of the brain,” Cunningham, who did his undergraduate work at Virginia Union University, said, “especially those dealing with short-term and long-term memory. Kids who use marijuana are probably not going to be A students. If our kids are to be competitive, we have to make certain they don’t take extra baggage into adulthood.”
Cunningham said those harmful effects of marijuana are among “a number of reasons why targeting African-American kids is a critical part of this (ad) campaign.”
When asked if the messages in some rap videos — or role models like Snoop Dogg or former Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams, who have both admitted using marijuana — affect the decision of some youth to use the drug, Price said it’s the parents who should be the ultimate role model.
“Parents have a responsibility to monitor their children,” Price said. “If one out of six are using that means five out of six are not, and they’re watching the same videos.”
