You know those meth ads running around the state since September? The ones that say if you try meth even once you’ll end up a scabby, toothless addict? They could be gone by April. Congress passed an omnibus spending bill earlier this week that slashes the White House’s anti-drug media campaign budget by 40 percent – from $99 million this year to $60 million in 2008 – and Bush is expected to sign it by New Year’s Eve.

Washington is one of eight states running the meth ads, paid for by a $10 million grant from the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign’s total budget. Bush wanted to expand the campaign – asking for $130 million in 2008 – but Congressional Democrats who took control of the funding committee this year rebuked him.

Rep. José E. Serrano (D-N.Y.), the new chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee told The Politco earlier this year: “The proposed increase for the … media campaign is something that we will have to evaluate closely in light of a report by the GAO suggesting the campaign is ineffective.” The ads, including ones that depict marijuana smokers accidentally killing children, were shown to increase drug abuse among adolescent girls. I tried to determine if the major funding cuts would mean the meth project ads would be terminated—as appears likely—or if funding for the pot ads would be reallocated to keep the new meth project afloat.

Nitsa Zuppas, Executive Director of the Meth Project, is unsure. “The national Meth Project pays to produce the ads,” she says. “The ONDCP gets to use them because they asked.” The ONDCP didn’t return my calls.

“There are dangers with marijuana and meth,” says Bill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance in Washington, D.C, “but teens think they are being lied to. That’s the problem with sensationalistic messages. People don’t take it seriously.”

I asked Piper what sort of ads he would like to see instead. He likes the meth ads in Utah, based on treatment, but abhors the federal ads running in Washington. Let’s compare.

Here’s the EndmethnowUtah campaign.

The message: Meth turns you into monotonous, overweight woman with a dull tattoo. Not very appealing. In contrast, here’s one of the ads funded by Meth Project:

The message: Meth turns you into a hot-bodied prostitute with a sexy, entrepreneurial boyfriend. That’s pretty alluring to the addiction-prone teen.