The war of words between state officials and the founder of a drug prevention program in Butler that has been barred from receiving state funding has intensified, with both sides accusing the other of giving misinformation.

At issue is a PowerPoint presentation developed by Norma Norris, executive director of the nonprofit organization CANDLE Inc., and founder of the Reality Tour — a drug prevention program — which she created.

In November state officials said that, as of July 1, 2016, agencies could not use state funds to pay for this program. They labeled the program, which uses dramatic portrayals of a teenager on heroin, as “scare tactics.”

Norris’ slide show claims, among other things: that the program has “saved lives” and “changed lives”; that University of Pittsburgh research justifies sustaining the program’s funding; that the key to stopping the heroin epidemic is educating parents; and that the Reality Tour is an educational program aimed at parents.

Officials at the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs took issue with the slide show, calling it misleading and full of factual errors about the program’s effectiveness.

“I believe the information she uses to demonstrate Reality Tour’s effectiveness has no basis,” said DDAP spokesman Jason Snyder.

Snyder said Norris has presented the slide show to Single County Authorities — the organizations that administer drug and alcohol programs at the county level. Norris said the slide show was e-mailed to people on CANDLE’s mailing list and defended its assertions as drawn directly from program participants.

“They want me to be confined to describing my program only with a scientific term when people don’t talk like that,” Norris said. “We don’t say this is going to save everybody’s lives or change everybody’s lives. This is what people tell us on our written surveys. This is what our tour directors are telling us. This isn’t just my opinion.”

Officials at DDAP responded to Norris’ criticism of their decision to halt funding by releasing two letters from researchers at Penn State University and the University of Pittsburgh supporting the department’s decision.

The Penn State letter, which is signed by researchers and administrators at the university’s Bennett Prevention Research Center, criticizes the Reality Tour for using practices the writers say have been “unequivocally demonstrated to be ineffectual or harmful.”

The letter criticized a 2008 evaluation of the Reality Tour by Pitt’s Program Evaluation and Research Unit, saying it was “not conducted with sufficient quality to establish confidence,” in Reality Tour’s effectiveness.

It also dismissed the program’s inclusion on the federal government’s National Registry for Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP) — something Norris has cited as evidence of Reality Tour’s proven effectiveness — as meaningless.

The letter says the Reality Tour is included in the database as a “legacy” program, and was added before more rigorous standards were put in place.

“Reality Tour clearly does not meet NREPP’s current standard,” the letter states.

Those criticisms are seconded in a letter signed by Jan Pringle, director of the Pitt program that evaluated Reality Tour in 2007.

In her letter, Pringle calls Pitt’s evaluation of the Reality Tour “very cursory” and “very, very preliminary,” and says Norris’ Power Point presentation on the program makes claims that aren’t backed up by evidence and are “misleading at best.”

“DDAP is demonstrating good fiscal stewardship by removing Reality Tour’s funding because the program cannot do what every other prevention program is now required to do — demonstrate meaningful outcomes,” Pringle’s letter states.

Pringle’s critiques are particularly pointed because she evaluated the Reality Tour in 2007. At the time, Pringle was a research assistant professor at Pitt’s School of Pharmacy.

But they also are directly contradicted by written comments she made in a July 23, 2007, “To Whom it May Concern” letter she provided to CANDLE at Norris’ request.

In that letter Pringle calls Pitt’s review a “rigorous evaluation” and praises Reality Tour as a “truly innovative and important program.”

She also defends the program’s dramatic components, and says they shouldn’t be confused with “more direct and confrontational” methods such as Scared Straight programs.

Norris said the contradictions raise questions about how objective the evaluations of her program are.

“Our program hasn’t changed, so how can Pitt look at our program ... and now backtrack,” Norris said. “That’s research in reverse.”

Pringle did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Norris also continued to raise questions about DDAP’s decision-making process, and said it’s been driven by organizations fighting for limited state funding and characterized by a lack of research into Reality Tour’s program.

“They’re skimming the documents. They’re never attending the program. They’re never looking at our evidence,” Norris said.

Snyder said a 2012 feedback letter from the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, and a 2014 e-mail exchange between DDAP and Kathrine Muller, president of the Commonwealth Prevention Alliance, show the department didn’t act in haste.

“This wasn’t something that was knee-jerk or not well thought-out,” Snyder said. “This was something that had been building for quite some time.”

The 2012 letter calls the Reality Tour “a return to old, outdated programs,” and says it relies primarily on scare tactics and lacks outcome data.

In her 2014 e-mail, Muller raises concerns about the Reality Tour being included in Pennsylvania’s list of “evidence informed” programs, and says the alliance did not support its use of scare tactics.

In an April 7 reply, Maureen Cleaver, a top administrator at DDAP, promised an “in-depth” review of the program that would take place during the 2014-15 fiscal year.

Norris said the Reality Tour has reached tens of thousands of people in Pennsylvania because of its design — something she doesn’t believe other programs endorsed by the state are capable of accomplishing.

“Educating significant numbers of parents is a gap that Reality Tour addresses with success,” Norris said. “An inordinate amount of state dollars in staff time seems to have been devoted to tearing down a nonprofit’s program without considering how collaboration could mean saving money and success for all concerned.”

Norris said she’s contacted state lawmakers and the office of U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly about the DDAP’s decision, which goes into effect on July 1. She also plans to meet with the Butler County commissioners, and pledged to “keep moving forward,” with efforts to recruit churches, civic groups and school districts to participate in the program.

“What the state has really set up is an adversarial position,” Norris said. “You’re pitting drug and alcohol (researchers) against community activists. That’s not a good option.”