“Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?”: Richard Nixon’s National Mass Media Campaign Against Drug Abuse

Abstract

This monograph explores how corporate, political, and public health concerns shaped the Nixon administration’s public service advertising campaign against drug abuse. Between 1970 and 1973, the Nixon administration worked with the nonprofit Advertising Council to orchestrate a national, “one-voice” mass media campaign to change Americans’ attitudes toward the use of drugs. Papers preserved in the archives of the Advertising Council and by Nixon administration officials expose behind-the-scenes conflicts over the government’s drug-abuse message among the White House, federal agency staff, and private partners in the campaign, including drug companies and the advertising and broadcasting industries. Controversies included whether to include alcohol, marijuana, legally marketed prescription drugs such as amphetamines, and dangerous retail drugs such as headache medicines and caffeine, and whether the campaign should promote safe drug use or only discourage “abuse.” Archival records reveal the president’s power to set the government’s message, despite bureaucratic and expert resistance. However, government control over the propaganda campaign was limited by reliance on the Ad Council and the voluntary participation of networks and broadcasters to distribute public service announcements (PSAs). Through the Ad Council’s process of reviewing and obtaining broadcast network clearances for individual PSAs, advertisements that disparaged alcohol and other legally advertised products were weeded from the national campaign. Ultimately, the White House’s vision of a mass media offensive against drug abuse in all its forms was implemented primarily as a campaign against the use of illegal drugs, particularly by youth. Although successful with broadcasters, the campaign was terminated in 1973 amid concerns it was actually stimulating illegal drug use.