Florida is using millions of dollars in settlement money from opioid manufacturers and distributors on an ad campaign against marijuana, according to state records.
The state Department of Children and Families last month spent $4 million to pay a marketing agency for an “advertising campaign aimed at educating Floridian families and youth about the dangers of marijuana, opioid, and drug use.”
The department did not respond to questions about what that campaign includes. But in recent weeks it has released two ads warning about the dangers of marijuana use among teenagers. The ads link marijuana use to schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.
One advertisement says that marijuana now is “engineered by corporations all for one purpose: to rewire the human mind.”
The ads come as Gov. Ron DeSantis fights against an amendment that would allow adult recreational use of marijuana in the state. The clips do not directly mention Amendment 3, but supporters say they are the latest examples of the administration trying to sway the upcoming election.
In recent days, DeSantis has held news conferences slamming Amendment 3, calling it “more liberal” than legal marijuana laws in states like Colorado and California. One news conference featured a woman who lost her son to opioid use who said marijuana was what started her son’s drug use.
First lady Casey DeSantis has also held multiple news conferences with law enforcement in recent days to rally opposition to the amendment. And Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who leads the Department of Health, did a TV interview in which he warned about negative health effects from pot.
The state agreed to pay $4 million to Strategic Digital Services, a marketing agency based in Tallahassee that frequently works with the state, to produce a campaign about the dangers of marijuana and other drugs. Some of that money has already been paid out through the opioid settlement trust fund, according to a state database.
It is not clear if the two recent advertisements were produced from the contract with Strategic Digital Services, but both were released after the contract was made. One warns viewers to “protect your children from the dangers of gateway drugs like marijuana and opioids,” while the other doesn’t mention opioids at all.
A bipartisan group of Amendment 3 proponents held a news conference Friday to decry what they said was a misuse of public money by the DeSantis administration to undermine the amendment effort.
“At the end of the day, tax dollars should not go to fund propaganda, bottom line,” said Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota.
Over the next 20 years, Florida will receive about $3 billion in money from lawsuits against companies for their roles in the opioid crisis. Some of that money goes directly to counties and cities, while the Florida Legislature allocates the largest chunk.
State law says the opioid settlement trust fund is meant to “abate the opioid epidemic” in accordance with the settlement agreement. The agreement’s description of approved purposes includes a more generalized reference to “substance use disorders,” though a specific list of approved uses more specifically hones in on opioid use.
Regina LaBelle, the director of the Center on Addiction and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law School, said she thinks Florida could make an argument that the anti-marijuana PSAs are an allowable use of settlement funds.
LaBelle said it’s important to know where the state is targeting the PSAs and if any other prevention campaign is paired with it, like offering parents tools on how to talk to their children, to understand if it’s effective and ethical.
An 11-member statewide council is tasked with reviewing how effective Florida’s opioid settlement spending has been. Seminole County Commissioner Lee Constantine, one of the members, said the idea of anti-marijuana PSAs never came before the council.
Constantine, a Republican, said that marijuana use is “clearly a different issue” than what the council is focused on, and said it is a “travesty” if the state has used opioid settlement dollars for anti-marijuana ads.
“I am not a fan of recreational marijuana use,” Constantine said. “Saying that, these dollars were intended to be used for the abatement of substance abuse in relation to opioids.”
H/T: www.miamiherald.com
