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White House Spinning Data
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WHITE HOUSE SPINNING YOUTH DRUG USE DATA From Drug Sense Weekly, Issue #529 By Matthew Robinson, PhD The 2007 report of the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study
has been
released First, ONDCP's online summary of the MTF findings focuses on a very short period of time -2001-2007 ( http://whitehousedrugpolicy.org/news/youthdrug_declines.html ). As in its annual National Drug Control Strategy reports, ONDCP downplays long-term drug use trends among young people. In fact, the ONDCP website depicts only four figures, all showing declines. ONDCP does acknowledge increases in some drugs (e.g. Oxycontin), but it does not depict these increases in figures. Instead, as in its Strategy reports, ONDCP visually depicts declines in drugs like meth and steroids. Second, some of ONDCP's claims are deceptive. For example, it says Ecstasy use among young people is down 54% since 2001. While this is true, it is also true that Ecstasy use is essentially unchanged since 1997. Ecstasy use increased from 1997 to 2001, then declined since. Overall, the trend is unchanged. ONDCP offers a slideshow on its website which summarizes some of the main findings from MTF ( http://whitehousedrugpolicy.org/pdf/MTF2007_ONDCP.pdf ). The slideshow proves that the drug war has not been effective at reducing drug use among young people over the long term. This is important because ONDCP's Performance Measures of Effectiveness demonstrates that ONDCP intends to consistently reduce drug use, something it has simply not done. Figures in the slideshow also show that use of prescription drugs is consistently up among 12th graders since 1991. While other drugs are down (e.g., LSD), this raises the possibility that young people have not stopped using drugs but rather have just switched to drugs that are lying around in their parents' homes. Ironically, these prescription drugs are more addictive and potentially dangerous to young people. Third, ONDCP takes credit even for reductions in alcohol and tobacco. It says: "When we push back against illegal drug use, youth abuse of other substances decrease as well [sic]." ONDCP offers no evidence that reductions in alcohol use and tobacco use among young people have anything to do with the drug war, and that is because they don't have any. In fact, the most consistent declines among all drugs depicted in the slideshow are for tobacco, a drug against which we are not waging a war; instead we are using honest educational campaigns combined with efforts to restrict legitimate businesses from selling tobacco products to kids. It is dishonest and wrong for ONDCP to take credit for these declines. The bottom line is that we've been fighting the modern drug war since the 1970s. ONDCP's slideshow proves that illicit drug use trends are virtually unchanged since 1975 among 12th graders - drug use increased from 1975 to 1979, declined consistently until 1991, and then increased since then. Recent declines in illicit drug use are quite small and have not negated the increasing trend since 1991. Illicit drug use among 8th and 10th graders has also not declined since 1991. The slideshow also shows that drugs are just as available now as they were in 1992, in spite of increased spending every year on the supply side portion of the drug war. In other words, during the tenure of ONDCP (1988-2007), drug use among youth is not down, and drugs are no less available to young people. This is just further proof that ONDCP is failing to meet its drug war goals of reducing use and availability of drugs. The President of the United States responded to the data, saying the war on drugs is fought against an "unrelenting evil that ruins families, endangers neighborhoods, and stalks our children" (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071211-4.html ). If this is true, ONDCP's drug war is failing to keep this evil at bay. In spite of the spin, its own data prove it.
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