MEDIA CAMPAIGN FLASH - Monday, June 5, 2006 
ONDCP/PDFA LAUNCH NEW AD CAMPAIGN AIMED AT PREVENTING METH USE AMONG HISPANICS
FIRST NATIONWIDE ANTI-METH EFFORT DESIGNED TO REACH THE HISPANIC

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the
Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) have launched a new communications
campaign aimed at preventing use of methamphetamine in the Hispanic community.
The English and Spanish-language campaign messages, which include public
service announcements for television, radio and print, will be distributed
nationally - making this the largest scale Spanish-language anti-meth effort to date.

The research-based prevention campaign targets two audiences - Hispanic young
adults ages 18-25, the demographic most likely to use meth, and adults
over the age of 25, especially parents and family influencers in extended
families. The meth campaign combines appeals to concerned citizens to learn how
they can take action to help protect their communities against the threat of
meth; to parents to talk to their children about the dangers of meth; and to
older teens and young adults about the terrible physical and psychological
damage meth does to the user.

The prevention campaign follows the release of a new PDFA study which revealed
that Hispanic teens are more than twice as likely to have tried meth as other
teens. More than one in three Hispanic teens in grades 7-12 report having close
friends who use meth, and less than half (49%) see great risk in trying meth
once or twice.

Additionally, research among Hispanic parents revealed a low awareness of
meth's prevalence and its dangers, along with a lower than average frequency of
talking to their kids about drugs. Just 35 percent of Hispanic parents reported
talking to their kids about drugs four or more times per year, compared with
about 50 percent of African American or Caucasian parents.

Nationwide, approximately 12 million people have tried meth at least once, with
1.4 million people reporting use in the past year. While meth use in the United
States is slowly declining, illegal meth labs continue to threaten communities
and strain local law enforcement resources in affected regions.

This effort is the next step in the communications campaign undertaken by ONDCP
and PDFA to target methamphetamine and continues the momentum of other anti-
meth ads that were released last winter. The ads have already garnered millions
of dollars worth of donated media time and space and driven thousands of people
to Web sites. The goal is that these new ads will enjoy a similar positive
response from media companies who reach the growing Hispanic population.
By working together, communities are fighting back against meth. Education and
outreach programs have helped spread the word that illicit substance use can be
harmful to a person's health and well being. Progress has been made over the
past three years against substance abuse and there has been a 19 percent
decline in youth drug use since 2001.

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