The effectiveness of anti-illicit-drug public-service announcements: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Existing evidence suggests that the dissemination of anti-illicit-drug PSAs may have a limited impact on the intention to use illicit drugs or the patterns of illicit-drug use among target populations.

Preventing Injection Drug use Initiation: State of the Evidence and Opportunities for the Future

“…Similarly, considerations of peer to peer injection education interventions as potential models of injection prevention may need to be considered [58]. Finally, emerging approaches must not repeat the failures of past prevention efforts, which have unsuccessfully used as a tool to bolster anti-drug social norms [59,60]. Beyond avoiding a repetition of past ineffectiveness, future interventions must also ensure that they do not inadvertently increase the stigma around drug injecting while seeking to prevent this behavior.…”

Perceptions of a drug prevention public service announcement campaign among street-involved youth in Vancouver, Canada: a qualitative study

“…PSAs can be described as advertisements or commercials that aim to provide information or advice about a particular health or social issue, or promote activities that serve the wider community [2]. …”

Post-war prevention: Emerging frameworks to prevent drug use after the War on Drugs

“…However, evidence has demonstrated that interventions seeking to prevent entry into drug use through social marketing are generally ineffective. 19 This is because anti-drug PSAs generally seek to bolster protective social norms by highlighting the dangers - physical, mental and moral - that arise with the use of drugs, in line with classical approaches to deterrence. 20 This emphasis on fear-based deterrence, however, has been shown to negatively impact intentions to use drugs among PSA audiences.…”

“…This, in turn, may arouse curiosity among viewers to experiment with drug use and lead to a weakening of protective social norms against their use. 21 The clear failure of such social marketing efforts, evidence in support of which has been generated by both independent experts 19 and government agencies, 22,23 belies a broader issue. Experts have posited that, because of the highly visible nature of these interventions, anti-drug social marketing interventions may have a secondary benefit in bolstering support for policies of drug criminalization through the mass media.…”