A new survey found that fewer teenagers in Denver are getting high, thanks in part to a city-led campaign to discourage underage use of marijuana.

Of more than 530 Denver teenagers between ages 13 and 17, the survey found that, among youth aware of the High Costs campaign, 81% of them said the campaign dissuaded them from consuming cannabis, compared with 75% the previous year.

The High Costs campaign strays away from scare tactics and instead focuses on providing facts to promote “accurate peer-to-peer conversations” among teens.

“The verdict is in that scare tactics are not successful with youth,” Denver Excise and Licenses Executive Director Ashley Kilroy said in a statement. “Providing them facts about marijuana is the most effective youth education and prevention approach.”

The survey, conducted by the Colorado-based data analytics group Insights Lab, found that the number of teenage males who are not current marijuana users jumped from 73% in 2018 to 82% last year.

However, the number of young females who aren’t current cannabis consumers decreased from 90% in 2018 to 87% last year.

Nevertheless, campaign spokesman Eric Escudero said in November, “I can say with a lot of confidence that this is one, if not the most, successful public education campaigns in the history of Denver.”

Denver’s Excise and Licenses department works to deliver accurate information around pot policies and marijuana’s health effects where kids already are: on their cell phones and computers. The High Costs campaign, which first rolled out in December 2017, is advertised on mobile gaming apps, YouTube, social media music-streaming platforms, such as Pandora, and more.  

The 2020 budget for Denver’s marijuana education and prevention fund is $1.6 million. That money comes from the retail marijuana special sales tax, which sets aside more than $30 million in 2020 for such issues as affordable housing, public health, regulation, enforcement and education.

The High Costs campaign represents 28% of the $1.6 million budget. The largest chunk of those funds, at 47%, goes to the Office of Children’s Affairs, whose primary focus is youth prevention.

“After Denver became the first major city in America with legalized retail marijuana, many other cities and states turned to us to learn how we successfully regulated marijuana,” Kilroy said. “Hopefully, our continued success educating youth to wait until they are of legal age to consume can also serve as an example for other communities across the U.S.”