Montana Meth Project ineffective - Journal of Health Economics

The following contribution has been kindly provided by Paul Dessauer:

The Montana Meth Project claims to have had a significant effect on methamphetamine use since it's inception in 2005;

<<<>>>



Now the project is expanding to other states and seeking increased Federal funding;

<<<>>> (both quotes from www.montanameth.org/ ).



Recently the University of Washington's D M Anderson has reviewed the Montana Meth Project.



He claims there is no evidence it had any influence on rates of methamphetamine use in Montana at all.



His review was published in the Journal of Health Economics last week;

<<< The strides in prevention touted by the Meth Project's supporters, he said, do not stand up from a statistical standpoint. "If I had found the meth project had an effect, that's what would have been reported," he said. "I just wanted to know if this anti-drug campaign worked and I found that it didn't." Similar concerns have been raised about a drug prevention program that began in the 1980s, Drug Abuse Resistance and Education. Also known as DARE, it is now employed by schools across the country despite multiple studies over the past two decades that said it yielded little or no benefit. The findings on the Montana Meth Project also are in line with work done by an Australian researcher. David Erceg-Hurn, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Western Australia, said in 2008 that the Meth Project had distorted its successes by emphasizing positive numbers. Erceg-Hurn found that after six months of exposure to the ads, there was an increase in the percentage of teens who said using methamphetamine was not a risky behavior or who strongly approved of regular meth use. >>>

Full article;

www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mt-montanamethprojec,0,2588400
.story



Bill Slaughter, (director of Montana Meth Project) responds to the University of Washington review;

www1.kxlf.com/news/montana-meth-project-responds-to-negative-univ
ersity-of-washington-study/



However the key plank to his argument is addressed by Anderson in the Chicago Tribune article I linked to (above);

<<< Supporters also argued that the decline in meth abuse has accelerated since the campaign was launched. Between 1999 and 2005, the number of youths reporting they had used meth fell 39 percent. Between 2005 and 2009, the drop was 63 percent. However, a closer examination reveals that the change in percentages was in part a function of the number of youths taking meth: As that number got lower, the same pace of decline yielded a more dramatic percentage drop. But the actual change was identical in both time periods. >From 1999 to 2005, the percentage of Montana youths reporting meth use
fell from 13.5 percent to 8.3 percent -- a 5.2 percent change. From 2005 to 2009, it fell to 3.1 percent -- another 5.2 percent change. >>>



Review of fellow West Aussie Erceg-Hurn's research from back in 2006;

www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2008/review-faults-m
ontana-meth.html

<<< Erceg-Hurn wrote that teens exposed to six months of MMP advertisements showed a threefold increase in self-reporting the opinion that meth use is not a risky behavior, and teens also were more likely to report that using heroin or cocaine is not risky, either. Erceg-Hurn also found that teenagers who saw the ads were four times more likely to strongly approve of regular meth use. The study also found that 50 percent of teenagers said they felt that the MMP advertisements exaggerated the risks associated with meth use. "The idea behind the ad campaign is that teenagers take meth because they believe it is socially acceptable, and not risky -- and the ads are meant to alter these perceptions," said Erceg-Hurn. "However, this theory is flawed because the MMP's own data shows that 98 percent of teenagers strongly disapproved of meth use and 97 percent thought using meth was risky before the campaign started." >>>



More commentary here;

stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/sep/21/montana_meth_project_did
nt_reduc

<<< But a new study from the University of Washington published in this month's issue of the Journal of Health Economics casts doubt on the project's claim to have influenced meth use rates. The rate of meth use in Montana was already declining by the time the Montana Meth Project got underway, the study found. "Methamphetamine use was trending downward already, and the research shows that the project has had no discernable impact on meth use," said study author D. Mark Anderson, a UW doctoral student in economics. Anderson said the project had not been empirically and rigorously scrutinized until his study. Using data from Youth Risk Behavior Surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Anderson compared meth use rates to rates nationwide and in nearby states. Using demographically similar Wyoming and North Dakota, which undertook no anti-meth project programs, as control cases, Anderson showed that in all three states, meth use declined gradually between 1999 and 2009. Anderson also scrutinized drug treatment admission reports from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and found that the Montana Meth Project had no measurable effect on meth use among young Montanans. His findings suggested that other factors, such as law enforcement crackdowns prior to 2005 or increasing knowledge of the ill-effects of meth use, were more likely to have led to declining levels of meth use. "Perhaps word got around on the street, long before the campaign was adopted, that meth is devastating," Anderson said. "Future research, perhaps of meth projects in the other states, should determine whether factors that preceded the campaigns contributed to decreases in usage.">>>



See also;

students.washington.edu/dma7/MethWorkingPaper_2ndDraft.pdf

and;

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1544004



Yours truly,

Paul.



Paul Dessauer,

Outreach Coordinator, WASUA.

Email me at [outreach@wasua.com.au]