A national youth drug prevention campaign
The Youth Substance Use Prevention and Awareness Act would fund a national youth drug prevention campaign, putting research-based prevention messages back in front of American teenagers, on the same screens where drugs are now sold to them. FDPS endorsed it. Here is what it does and why it matters.
The last national youth drug prevention campaign went dark more than a decade ago. Since then fentanyl, high-potency marijuana, kratom and vapes have arrived, and dealers moved onto social media. The Youth Substance Use Prevention and Awareness Act is a bipartisan bill to fund a new generation of prevention messaging, built on research, run locally, and measured every year.
What the youth drug prevention campaign bill does
The bill does not create a new agency or a single national ad buy. It adds youth prevention campaigns to a grant program the Department of Justice already runs, and it makes every campaign prove itself.
Expands an existing program
It amends the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program (COSSUP), the Bureau of Justice Assistance grant program created by the 2016 Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, to allow funding for “research-based public service announcement campaign programs targeted at youth substance use prevention using age-appropriate material.”
H.R. 6902, amending 34 U.S.C. 10701(a)
Reaches kids where they are
Grants can pay for television, radio, print, outdoor and digital public service announcements, so a state or county can run messages on the platforms its own young people actually use.
Lets young people make the message
Funding can support public service announcement contests that solicit submissions from youth themselves, the approach that worked best in the last campaign’s strongest years.
Measures what works
The Attorney General must publish an annual report on every funded campaign: the research behind it, the regional messaging used, how it fits the grantee’s wider prevention work, and its effectiveness at reducing youth drug use.
House and Senate versions
Companion bills are pending in both chambers.
| Chamber | House | Senate |
| Bill | H.R. 6902, Youth Substance Use Prevention and Awareness Act | S. 1611, Youth Substance Use Prevention and Awareness Act |
| Introduced | December 18, 2025 | May 6, 2025 |
| Sponsors | Rep. Derek Tran (D-CA), Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-CO), Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) | Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) |
| Committee | House Judiciary | Senate Judiciary |
| What it does | Adds research-based youth prevention PSA campaigns and youth PSA contests to the COSSUP grant program, with an annual effectiveness report from the Attorney General. | |
| Status | Introduced and referred to committee. Track it | Introduced and referred to committee. Track it |
Why a national youth drug prevention campaign is worth funding
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Nine in ten
People with a drug addiction who began using as teenagers. Delay first use past adolescence and most addiction never starts.
MATFORCE, in the sponsors’ announcement; consistent with National Institute on Drug Abuse findings on age of first use
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$18 for every $1
Estimated savings from every dollar invested in prevention, according to the National Association for Children Impacted by Addiction.
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Nearly 2 million
Adolescents aged 12 to 17 who reported using an illicit drug in the past month, and more than 5 million young adults with a substance use disorder.
National Survey on Drug Use and Health, cited by the bill’s sponsors
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1 in 5
American children who live in a household where a parent has a substance use disorder.
Cited by the bill’s Senate sponsors
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One phone
Where a teenager now sees drug promotions, buys counterfeit pills and gets the message that marijuana and psychedelics are medicine. Prevention has to be on that screen too.
In an age where young people are buying drugs and seeing drug promotions on social media, public service announcements aimed at preventing substance use before it starts are critical.
Dr. Kevin A. Sabet, President and CEO, FDPS, January 2026
Lessons from the last national youth drug prevention campaign
America has run a national youth anti-drug media campaign before. Its record is mixed, and the bill is written with that record in mind.
The campaign that backfired
Congress created the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign in 1998. Its first phase spent more than a billion dollars on ads, and a 2006 Government Accountability Office review reported that the government’s own five-year evaluation did not find the campaign effective in reducing youth drug use, and that greater exposure was associated with weaker anti-drug norms.
Above the Influence
The relaunched campaign built messages around autonomy and aspiration. By the end of eighth grade, 12 percent of students who had not seen it had started using marijuana, compared with 8 percent of those who knew it. A separate study of 130,000 students found lower marijuana use among eighth-grade girls in markets with more exposure. Federal funding ended anyway, and the campaign was handed to a nonprofit in 2014.
Slater et al., Prevention Science, 2011; Carpenter and Pechmann, American Journal of Public Health, 2011
What the new bill fixes
Local campaigns instead of one national ad buy, so messaging fits the drugs and the communities where kids live. Research-based content as a condition of funding. Youth-made content. And an annual public evaluation of whether each campaign reduced youth drug use, so the money follows what works.
Why the timing matters
The prevention infrastructure that existed in 2010 is gone, and the drug supply is deadlier. Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45, and federal moves to normalize marijuana and psychedelics send young people the opposite message. Rebuilding prevention is the counterweight.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, in the Senate sponsors’ announcement
Who supports the youth drug prevention campaign
Forty-one state and territorial attorneys general, led by New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire and South Dakota, urged Congress to pass the bill in May 2025. The endorsing organizations span the drug policy spectrum: the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, Partnership to End Addiction, Addiction Policy Forum, the National Association for Children Impacted by Addiction, the National Crime Prevention Council, the Brent Shapiro Foundation, the Alexander Neville Foundation, MATFORCE, Substance Awareness Coalition Leaders of Arizona, Gang Free North Carolina, the Drug Policy Alliance and the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions.
Attorneys general coalition letter, May 22, 2025 · Senate introduction · House introduction
Youth drug prevention campaign: frequently asked questions
Does the bill create a new federal program?
No. It adds youth prevention campaigns to the allowable uses of COSSUP, a Department of Justice grant program that has existed since 2016, so states, local governments and tribes can apply for what they already know how to run.
Is this the return of “This is your brain on drugs”?
No. The bill requires campaigns to be research-based and age-appropriate, allows youth-produced content, and makes the Attorney General report each year on whether a campaign actually reduced youth drug use. The scare-tactic era failed its own evaluation, and this bill is built to avoid repeating it.
How much money is involved?
The bill does not set a dollar figure. It expands what COSSUP grants may fund, so campaigns compete within the program’s existing appropriation unless Congress adds to it.
Who can apply?
The same applicants as COSSUP today: states, units of local government and Indian tribal governments, working with their coalitions, schools and health departments.
Where does FDPS stand?
FDPS endorsed the bill and praised Reps. Tran, Hurd and Dean and Sens. Kelly, Tillis and Coons for introducing it. FDPS is asking Congress to pass it and to fund prevention at the scale the current drug supply demands.
Ask your representative and senators to cosponsor the Youth Substance Use Prevention and Awareness Act.
It takes two minutes. Tell them prevention is the cheapest, most effective drug policy there is, and that kids should hear it before the dealers reach them.
Write your representativesBring a prevention training to your community
