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Be Under Your Own Influence

“Be Under Your Own Influence.”

Research-based youth substance use prevention campaign by Colorado State University (Michael Slater and colleagues) that tied not using marijuana or alcohol to teens' own goals and independence. It combined in-school posters and materials with community-run local media, and was tested in randomized community trials.

Years
2005–2009
Country
United States
Topic
AlcoholCannabisDrugs
Asks people to
Never start
Strategy
Peer crowdSelf efficacy
Channel
EventsPrintRadioSchool
Audience
Youth
Middle-school students.

Evidence

ExperimentalMixed

First trial: 16 US communities randomized (Slater 2006); students in campaign communities had about half the odds of being users at final follow-up for marijuana (OR 0.50), alcohol (OR 0.40) and cigarettes (OR 0.49). A 2005-2009 replication in 20 communities (Slater 2011) reproduced the effect only in part, probably because the similar national Above the Influence campaign was running at the same time.

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Colorado State University Academic, developer and evaluator

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. Slater MD et al. Combining in-school and community-based media efforts: reducing marijuana and alcohol uptake among younger adolescents. Health Educ Res 2006;21(1):157-67 evaluation · 2006 · DOI 10.1093/her/cyh056 · PMID 16199491
  2. Slater MD et al. Assessing media campaigns linking marijuana non-use with autonomy and aspirations: "Be Under Your Own Influence" and ONDCP's "Above the Influence". Prev Sci 2011;12(1):12-22 evaluation · 2011 · DOI 10.1007/s11121-010-0194-1 · PMID 21271357
  3. Kelly KJ et al. Development of an aspirational campaign to prevent youth substance use: 'Be Under Your Own Influence'. Social Marketing Quarterly 2006 evaluation · 2006 · DOI 10.1080/15245000600721735
  4. Crabtree MA et al. Be under your own influence: Effectiveness of a Culturally-Adapted drug prevention campaign targeting Reservation-Dwelling American Indian youth. J Community Psychol 2021 evaluation · 2021 · DOI 10.1002/jcop.22672 · PMID 34273115

Research notes

Created 2026-10-22 by literature mining (PubMed/OpenAlex); evidence level, outcome and findings are paraphrased from the evaluation abstracts, full texts not read. No credits: no page naming an agency was checked. startYear 2005-2009 are the replication dates; the earlier trial (Slater 2006) ran before 2005 and its exact years were not in the abstract. Also adapted for American Indian youth (Kelly 2018). Evaluation sources added 2026-10-22 (citation snowballing / helpline pass): Crabtree 2021; evidence level and outcome unchanged.

Record cases/be-under-your-own-influence.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign