Drug Paraphernalia Case Study

Using Media Advocacy to Counter Marijuana Normalization and Reduce Access to Drug Paraphernalia:

Media advocacy to support our initiative to enforce California’s Health & Safety Codes pertaining to drug paraphernalia.

Rather than a typical podium-style news conference we chose to work exclusively with one, trusted, news outlet well in advance of the actual news making opportunity. We made the trade-off of quality over quantity of news-making because this issue is complicated and challenging to express in “sound bites.” This process allowed us to provide the news outlet with extensive research and background information about the initiative, ensuring that their report would be well-informed and balanced.  Likewise, the news outlet promised confidentiality about the enforcement operation until just the right moment. 

On the day of the enforcement operation, a caravan of law enforcement vehicles progressed from one retailer to the next until all seven location where “drug paraphernalia” had been sold to an undercover officer for the stated use with illegal drugs.  The news reporter and photojournalist were allowed to ride along with law enforcement and record the process from within the stores, covering the story as it unfolded.  Our exclusive story broke that day but other stations picked it up the next day when we were able to organize community members to respond.  The outcome of our media advocacy was that our story was in the public dialog for three days and was carried on multiple television stations, the only metropolitan daily newspaper (for both the story and a follow-up letter to the editor) and one of the weekly community papers.

Specifically, our media advocacy campaign was an integrated component of the SPF to accomplish:

• Assessing community conditions in and around each retail location
• Documenting youth use and attitudes toward marijuana including:  ease of access to marijuana, perception of harm associated with frequent marijuana use, youth intentions regarding level of marijuana use, and youth use data at various grade levels
• Increasing community awareness of the laws surrounding drug paraphernalia and the relationship between visibility of drug paraphernalia retail locations, youth access in the retail locations and youth attitudes toward use of marijuana.
• Documenting community support for enforcement of California Health & Safety Codes
• Implementing community action and law enforcement action
• Bringing the media into a drug paraphernalia retail store
• Giving authentic community voices a platform to be heard through the media

Undoubtedly you’ve heard the phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”   See the photos, read the news and see what you think.