By Angela Johnston
The city’s health agency will soon be telling teens not to “drug and drive” through a $346,000 citywide marketing blitz. City officials say Ottawa is the first city in Canada to craft a youth-based social marketing message on the issue of smoking marijuana and driving, and that lessons learned in Ottawa could be a model for the rest of Canada.
The campaign, called “Drugged Driving Kills,” will be launched in April.
Ottawa Public Health, with Carlington Community and Health Services, is developing a grassroots message where youth will design posters, bus ads and radio spots in five languages—English, French, Somali, Chinese and Arabic. Tom Scholberg, the health promoter for youth at Carlington, says the advertisements are likely to take on a style similar to Ottawa’s “exposé” anti-smoking ads on the OC Transpo system. The exposé campaign is a youth-led tobacco awareness program. Current posters use the theme “Unmask the Tobacco Industry,” where a face is pulled away to reveal a yellow-toothed, money-grabbing tobacco executive.
Scholberg says this program is important because pot use and driving is still socially acceptable amongst teens. He says that teens believe pot is not as dangerous as alcohol.
“I hear that you still have your senses and are aware of what’s going around you,” says 14-year-old Lisgar Collegiate student, Molly Teitelbaum,who says she has never smoked pot, but thinks driving while high is not as dangerous as drinking and driving.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s 2005 survey on student drug use in Ontario shows that the percentage of teens driving and using pot is higher than those who drink and drive. Approximately 20 per cent of student drivers surveyed said that they had driven within an hour of using marijuana. A recent World Health Organization study identified Canadians aged 14-25 as the heaviest pot users in the world.
Ottawa Police say that, anecdotally, their officers say there has been an increase in the number of teens they pull over that have been high while driving. Sgt. Darren Vinet, from the Alcohol and Counter Measures section, says teens are not well informed about the dangers. He says using pot and driving affects drivers’ attention spans, reaction time and ability to stay in lanes.
“Once you explain, they realize that maybe it is as dangerous as drinking and driving,” says Vinet.
“They need to have the information to make the informed choice and make the right choice,” says Terry-Lynne Marko, a public health nurse from Ottawa Public Health, who helped spearhead the campaign.
A bill before Parliament would have made it mandatory to test those suspected of using drugs and driving. Right now, testing is only voluntary. With the dissolution of Parliament, this bill is now off the books. Though Parliament was considering the decriminalization of marijuana, this campaign is only targeting only smoking pot and driving—not whether using pot is morally acceptable.
The MADD Ottawa chapter is one of the approximately 20 partners in the program. Spokeswoman Tina Nagratha says they feel the campaign is important because she agrees that smoking pot and driving is as bad as drinking and driving.
While this campaign is operating locally, there are also national efforts by the Canadian Public Health Association.
“The issue crept up on us,” says Sylvia Fanjoy, director of national programs at the association.
The national program will distribute 90,000 posters featuring two pilots getting high before take-off. The message is that if pilots shouldn’t do it, neither should teens.
Both at the local and national level, staff members say it is necessary to frame pot and driving as a personal choice and that “scare tactics” telling teens it is morally wrong to use pot and drive would be unsuccessful.
Still, some teens say they weren’t sure how effective the campaign would be without television ads. “Kids are just going to walk by a poster, but they’re always watching TV,” said Zach Henry, 15, from Lisgar Collegiate. Television ads are too expensive, says Fanjoy.
While all involved say it will probably take 20-25 years to change attitudes about pot and driving — similar to changing attitudes about drinking and driving — the city’s funding for the program is guaranteed for a year and a half.
“It’s something that isn’t going to go away in a year and a half,” says Scholberg. Still, he says the issue has to be taken step-by-step. A year and a half will allow for evaluation of the social marketing campaign, he says, and then those in the campaign can decide what needs to be changed in the future.