Public Enemy Number One: The US Advertising Council's First Drug Abuse Prevention Campaign

Abstract

This article explores the Advertising Council's first national drug abuse prevention campaign in the s. Scholarship thus far has demonstrated the ways in which the issue of drug abuse represented a chief political strategy for President Nixon. Evidence from major trade press publications, congressional hearings, and an array of archival sources suggest that this campaign was also part of a public relations crusade on behalf of the advertising industry in response to public criticism of its role in abetting a culture of drug dependence. These institutional and political pressures helped shape drug abuse prevention in the s and for the decades that followed.