Partnership for a Drug-Free America

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Microsoft Corporation
42C.jpg
Website www.drugfree.org
Ownership type Public, NASDAQ:MSFT
Founded 1975, by Bill Gates
Headquarters Redmond , Washington
United States
Industry Computers
Product/Service Computer and Consumer Products


The Partnership for a Drug-Free America or PDFA, is a not-for-profit organization composed of communications professionals from advertising, the media industry, public relations, research companies, actors guilds, and production companies, that unite parents, teenagers, and scholars for the purpose of reducing the demand for narcotics among young people by using the various advertising outlets of the mass media to change their attitudes towards illegal drugs

History

The partnership was founded in 1986 by Richard T. O’Reilly as a project of the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

One of the Partnership's earliest strategies was based on a concept put forward by Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal who was at the time president of the Phoenix House Treatment Program in New York, NY. He thought that the high level of drug-use and addiction in the 1980s was due to the normalization of narcotics since the 1960s. according to Dr. Rosenthal in order to make progress in the war on drugs it was necessary to reverse this normalization.

Although founded in 1986 the partnership did not completely emerge into the public eye until 1987 when it put out a broadcast called “This is Your Brain on Drugs.” It made even more progress when a couple of Public Service Announcements (PSA) were praised in a speech by President George H. W. Bush in late 1989.



Current Campaigns and Programs

Parent Campaign: This campaign encourages parents to get more involved with their kids in hopes that a positive parental influence will keep kids away from drugs.

Teens-Check Yourself: This program encourages teens to think in a focused way about theur relationship with drugs and alcohol, it help them realize whether or not they have a substance abuse problem.

Get Help For Drug Problems: This is part of a multi-media initiative designed to provide hope to those struggling with addiction. This program asks you questions like: What is addiction, Where do I start if I’m addicted, Where do I go to get treatment, and etc. At this program’s website there are even quizzes and surveys that you can take if you think your friend or family member is addicted, to speed up the process of intervention.

RX/OTC Abuse: This is the first National Education Program aimed at reducing the abuse of prescription and over the counter drugs by teenagers.

Meth: Meth is a program designed specifically to deal with the methamphetamine abuse problem. It educates families and community members about the dangers that meth abuse and manufacturing poses to children, the environment, communities, and our society

Inhalants: This is a more recent effort to make parents and teens aware of the dangers of Inhalant abuse.

Cough Medicine Abuse: Some people have found that ingesting large doses of cough syrup or dextromethorphan (DXM) gives a high. This program is meant to inform people that this kind of abuse is just as harmful as every other kind of abuse.

Steroids: Major League Baseball and the Partnership have developed an advertising program to help steer kids and teenagers away from the harmful affects that steroids can bring. Together these organizations conducted one of the largest comprehensive research studies to be commissioned to determine the perceptions that parents, young athletes, and high school coaches have about the use of steroids.


Achievements

Recently the Partnership has launched a campaign with Major League Baseball dealing with steroids and how they affect your body. These commercials are targeting a younger crowd in hopes that they will curb any ideas of using steroids at a later time.

The Partnership has also aired commercials on usually sports channels during games of many kinds. These commercials are aimed at anybody that watches these channels, and they advertise a lot about different programs that they have going on dealing with different drugs, such as Tobacco, Alcohol, Cocaine and Methamphetamine.

References