Robert Orwin

Robert Orwin, Westat's principal investigator on the study, says that he and his colleagues were surprised to find that the Media Campaign produced a boomerang effect, but they "couldn't make it go away."He offered a theory on why it might be so."The message was that drugs are bad for you; don't do drugs," he says."The meta-message was that a government agency is spending all this money and all this effort to tell me how bad drugs are, so everybody must be using drugs."

Orwin is also critical of the "Reefer Madness"-style hysteria of some of the ads. (For the record, he believes that it is dangerous for kids to smoke pot.) Particularly memorable was the ad in which one tween blows another away with his father's gun after the two are seen smoking pot.In another TV spot, some stoned kids in an S.U.V. run over a little girl on a tricycle.Orwin suspects that many teenagers, who "aren't stupid," viewed much of this rhetoric as pure comedy."The ONDCP and the Partnership claimed that they copy-tested the ads with kids, trying to get their near-term reactions, and that the kids liked the ads," he says.
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"In the case of [the anti-smoking ads], kids were more heavily involved in the design," says Orwin.
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According to Orwin, it was the later, more highly-rated spots--the "Marijuana Initiative" ads that began in late 2002--that were found to have the greatest boomerang effect.Perhaps the kids in the focus groups weren't "goofing" on the Partnership, as Orwin surmised.

GAO and Robert Orwin of Westat.

When: Wednesday, January 22 from Noon until 1:30 p.m.

Where: George Washington UniversityThe Marvin Center, Room 302