Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006

TRANSPORTATION, TREASURY, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, THE JUDICIARY, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - June 29, 2005)

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AMENDMENT NO. 17 OFFERED BY MR. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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Mr. LARSEN of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I would like to express my support for the Souder-Larsen amendment to restore adequate funding to the National Youth and Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

I thank and recognize the subcommittee chair and ranking member for their efforts on drafting this bill. They have done an admirable job considering the tight budgetary restraints. Unfortunately, the funding level for the media campaign is not adequate.

The media campaign is an important component in our fight against drugs. It reduces demand for all drugs, not just marijuana. Reducing demand means reducing the number of lives lost to the scourge of drugs, particularly methamphetamine.

According to a leading global marketing firm, teens frequently exposed to strong anti-drug messages are 38 percent less likely to have tried meth and 31 percent less likely to have tried crack and cocaine.

When the media campaign began in 1998, it had a budget of $195 million. While the campaign has proven effective, it has continually been cut. This last year it was funded at $120 million. Meanwhile, the costs of advertising have skyrocketed. So in real advertising dollars, the campaign is operating at less than half of its original strength.

A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that the average child watches 3 hours of television a day. That is about 21 hours a week, 1,008 hours a year. The media campaign uses the amount of time our kids are watching TV and gives them negative messages about drug use. Without additional funds, the campaign would not be able to produce our air-targeted ads against meth, ecstasy, or other emerging drug threats.

This current level of funding will fund only the bare minimum for a campaign that educates millions of young people on the dangers of drug abuse. To increase the ads on meth, we must increase funding for this important program.

I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana for his work on this issue, and I urge a "yes" vote on the Souder-Larsen amendment.

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