1. There were however very few of you that used ALL the info I provided!
Describe + Evaluate
FRANK Campaign
Overall you MOP task was good. You clearly researched the topic and produced a good piece of work.
There were however very few of you that used ALL the info I provided!

2. Description
FRANK is a national drug education service jointly set up in 2003 by the Department of Health and the Home Office of the British government. It is intended to decrease the use of both legal and illegal drugs by providing "targeted" and "accurate information on drugs and alcohol", particularly to school pupils. It is advertised and promoted through television, radio and the internet. The service is confidential, free and operated by fully trained advisers.

3. Strengths
Has different ways of explaining the effects of drugs effectively e.g. Videos/interactive parts of the website and also people’s own stories.
Provides information on different types of treatment rather than purely explaining the effects of drugs.
As it is targeted at young people, they may be less likely to take drugs after seeing the website (as many schools show the students the site in lessons).

4. Strengths additional
Talk to Frank is based on the Yale Model of Persuasion which has experimental support for the effectiveness of presenting both sides of the argument (see blog for more info)
They are preventative rather than curative so stops issues before they cause health/lifestyle/family issues
Quantitative measures of health related behaviour (death rate, consumption, helpline activity) can be statistically verified
Can be costly but cheap in comparison to curative strategies
The Home Office believes its Talk to Frank campaign works. It says 67% of young people in a survey said they would turn to Frank if they needed drugs advice. 225,892 calls were made to the Frank helpline and 3,341,777 visits to the website in 2011/12. Psychological research supports the idea that media campaigns like those used by Frank can change behaviour and be effective. For example…

5. Limitations
The campaign has been accused of giving false and misleading information about drugs. One example was in 2007 when the site had to remove an article entitled "Cannabis Explained" after a number of groups (some of which agree with the decriminalisation of cannabis use) pointed out errors in the information presented. The Transform Drug Policy Foundation criticised FRANK's campaign on cocaine on the basis that the harms it showed are a result of legal prohibition rather than the drug itself.
The Talk to Frank campaigned has come under a great deal of criticism. For example, the Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith criticised FRANK and drug education in February 2010, arguing that "Drugs education programmes, such as Talk to Frank, have failed on prevention and intervention, instead progressively focusing on harm reduction and risk minimisation, which can be counter-productive." The Centre for Social Justice, a think tank set up by Iain Duncan Smith, further argued that FRANK "has proved ineffectual and even damaging, to the point of giving information as to the ‘cost’ and immediate physical effects of drugs more prominently than driving home the danger.”
In other words Iain Duncan Smith is arguing that the Frank campaign doesn’t work as it is simply not scary enough!
Targeted at young people specifically, therefore other age groups would feel excluded from the campaign.

6. Weaknesses additional
Health programmes often go hand in hand with a change in public opinion, which may account for reduction in unhealthiness rather than programme itself
Health campaigns only work if people do not have barriers to health related behaviour and can access help
Difficult to measure effectiveness as many factors may cause increase in health

7. Evaluative Passage
I believe that Talk To Frank (and other campaigns encouraging people not to use recreational drugs) are very essential in trying to prevent the amount of drug use. However, I do think Talk To Frank is specifically targeted at young people, meaning that other age groups may feel excluded from being able to participate with the campaign. There is also some evidence of giving false evidence, which of course needs to be altered. I think that for further action these types of campaigns are the way forward, however I believe they can be improved. One example would be emphasising more on people giving their own stories, so that people can relate to it more than just seeing cold facts about what will happen to their body if they take the drugs. Also I think that the campaign should appeal to older drug users/those thinking about taking drugs as well, rather than just teenagers, perhaps by not having such an emphasis on interactivity on the internet. But also I think that the success of these types of campaigns would be further improved if they were made compulsory to look at in schools.