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NEW ADS TARGET USE OF ECSTASY AND METH
Tue, 10 Jun 2003
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
Many teens in the St. Louis area don't
think Ecstasy and methamphetamine can hurt them - and many parents don't know
their teens are taking the drugs, according to a study to be issued today.
With both drugs increasingly available here, conditions are right for
an epidemic, says the Partnership for a Drug Free America, which sponsored the
study. Today, the Partnership will launch an ad campaign to show families the
dark side of meth and Ecstasy, two drugs that weren't in the public eye when
most teens' parents were teens.
The ads will run for two years here and
in Phoenix as test markets. The campaign also aims to nudge the St. Louis media
to cover the harm that is caused by the drugs. More than a dozen local
pediatricians have volunteered to go on radio and TV to talk about it.
St. Louis was chosen for the campaign by virtue of being in Missouri, by far
the No. 1 meth producing state in the United States. Coveted as euphoric and
stimulating, meth can be smoked, snorted, swallowed or injected. Many experts
consider it more addictive and toxic than crack cocaine.
Like the
Partnership's previous ads, some of the new ones will address parents and some
teens. Recent ads from the Partnership have taken a political bent. "Last
weekend I washed my car, hung out with my friends and helped murder a family in
Colombia," intoned one.
But the ones aimed at St. Louis will focus
strictly on the drugs' negative effects.
"The message in the ads is
methamphetamines can kill, Ecstasy can kill," said Dr. Todd Vedder, a
pediatrician in Fenton who is involved with the campaign. "It's approaching it
from the health risks rather than a convoluted terrorist tie-in."
After
the first and second year of the campaign, the Partnership will poll teens and
parents once more to see if the message got through.
One obstacle for
the anti-drug effort is Ecstasy's reputation as a great high with few risks.
The survey indicates even parents saw few health consequences from taking the
psychedelic amphetamine.
Ecstasy, almost always taken as a pill, is
commonly associated with raves, all-night parties featuring fast-beating
electronic music and laser lights. It is thought that parents permit their
children to attend because the events are billed as alcohol-free.
St.
Louis County Police Detective John Wall knows that all too well. "If you have a
teenager who says he's going to a party with no drinking, no alcohol, just
dancing and lights, what are you going to think?"
What parents and
teens might not know is that science is increasingly proving Ecstasy to be
addictive and potentially lethal, said Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of the
Partnership.
The study surveyed 300 teens at five area malls -
Crestwood, South County and Mid-Rivers malls in Missouri and Alton Square and
St. Clair Square in Illinois - and 300 parents chosen randomly from existing
phone survey lists. It has a margin of error of 5.7 percent.
The study
found:
3 percent of teens said they had used meth, and 8 percent said
they had used Ecstasy.
But just 1 percent of parents said they believed
their teen used meth and 1 percent Ecstasy.
18 percent of teens said
they had been offered meth, and 32 percent said they had been offered Ecstasy.
Half of teens said they knew someone who used Ecstasy, and 40 percent
said they knew someone who used meth.
56 percent of parents thought it
was likely that teens were using Ecstasy or meth nationally, but less than 20
percent thought teens were doing those drugs in their neighborhood.
The
increasing availability of the drugs and the report's findings "tell us one
thing," Pasierb said. "Teenagers in this region are facing a serious health
threat. We must do everything we can to head this off."
Copyright:
2003 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Author: Jeremy Kohler |
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