Pubdate: Thu, 20 Feb 2003
Source: Michigan Daily (Ann Arbor, MI Edu)
Copyright: 2003 The Michigan Daily
Contact:  http://www.michigandaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/582
Author: Andy Taylor-Fabe

AN ANTI-DRUG ADVERTISING GENIUS IS BORN

By now, everyone has seen and complained about the asinine new line of 
"Reefer Madness"-style anti-drug propaganda ads that have been on TV 
lately. In case you need clarification, these are the ads that show a 
terrible tragedy happening as a result of marijuana use, followed by 
ominous phrases like "Marijuana can impair your judgement" or "It's more 
harmful than we all thought."

First of all, we have to talk about their catch phrase: "Marijuana can 
impair your judgement." Is this news to anyone? That's part of the reason 
people smoke - so they can make judgement-impaired decisions like eating an 
extra-large pizza in one sitting and constantly watching Cartoon Network.

Anyway, to sum up the series of ads, if you smoke pot, you will, in the 
near future, probably get cancer, get raped or rape someone, shoot your 
best friend, go to jail, run over little Susie with your car, kill your 
little brother while driving high, get knocked up and help fund terrorists 
(which, let's face it, makes you directly responsible for Sept. 11).

The now infamous terrorism-themed ads, one of which premiered during the 
Super Bowl, are especially amusing and disturbing for one important reason. 
Forget the fact that the government spent $3.4 million on two 30-second ad 
spots, which ironically, were watched mostly by people who are too busy 
punishing their livers and brains with their drug of choice, good old legal 
American beer, to actually pay attention. And forget the fact that it is 
the War on Drugs and the illegality of drugs, not the use or even purchase 
of drugs, that help to fund terrorist activities. The real failure of this 
ad is that there is absolutely no way you are convincing a teenage kid that 
by buying a dime bag of crappy pot from his friend Steve, he is in any way 
contributing to terrorism or violence.

OK, OK, I'll admit - if you are buying large quantities of heroin or 
cocaine from foreign sources, you might be somehow funneling money back to 
the bad guys, so all you naughty kingpins out there should knock it off.

What the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign is completely missing is 
that to get to kids, you can't try to use guilt, fear of punishment (legal 
or parental), or even death as incentives. Kids just don't buy it. All you 
ad people, pay close attention to this next part: A few years ago, a 
company that manufactured a household cleanser found that a lot of kids 
were using their product as an inhalant despite labels bearing prominent 
warnings like "May cause DEATH," "You will DIE INSTANTLY if you inhale 
this" and "Seriously, you will totally, like, melt like the Nazis at the 
end of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' and die if you inhale this crap." Despite 
their severe warnings, the huffing continued. When the company asked its 
lawyer what to do, he told them that they should change the label to 
include the warning "May cause hair loss and facial disfigurement" even 
though the product did neither of these things. As the phony warning 
appeared, reports of huffing immediately decreased.

To most adolescents, physical appearance and being sexually attractive are 
much more important than any idle threats of immediate death. Anti-drug ads 
should appeal to teenage narcissism, not lofty notions of responsibility 
and danger.

Well I'm sick of seeing the good people at the Anti-Drug Campaign fall on 
their asses when it comes to reaching out to the kids (D.A.R.E., I'm 
looking in your direction), so I have decided that instead of just 
criticizing their horribly, horribly ineffective ads, I will do my part and 
pitch some new, fresh ad concepts that are tailored to teen audiences and 
more, to use a phrase that appears on their website, "hip" (I challenge you 
to show me more concrete proof that they are painfully out-of-touch with 
their target audience). Here goes ... I'm allowed to lie, right? Whew, 
thank God. This would be hard if I had to tell the complete truth.

The setting: a dimly lit bedroom. A woman lies on her bed, looking 
affectionate but disappointed. A man sits on the corner of the bed, head in 
his hands. Then, we see on the screen, "If you smoke pot, you won't be able 
to get it up ... Harmless?" It'll work wonders.

You don't like that one? Ooh, ooh, I've got a better one.

A teenage boy stands in a harshly-lit bathroom in his boxers, staring in 
the mirror. He pulls the waistband of his shorts forward, takes a peek down 
at his gear and screams. Then we see, "Smoking pot makes your penis small. 
Seriously, it'll shrink right up like you just swam in Lake Michigan in 
February ... Harmless?" That'll knock 'em dead, I tell you, dead.

Not wild about that one either, huh? Well, the possibilities for preying on 
teen self-consciousness are endless, from decreased breast size to having 
to wear braces longer. ("Marijuana can keep your teeth from straightening.")

No good? OK, I suppose that instead of using wild exaggeration and scare 
tactics to bully kids into obeying, you could try telling them the real 
harm of smoking pot. First, I don't know how accurate the government's 
figures on marijuana's tar content are, but I'll admit, any activity in 
which you inhale smoke into your lungs is somewhat bad for you. If you sat 
over a pile of burning leaves in your backyard on a regular basis, you 
would probably get a similar amount of crud in your lungs. The other major 
problem with pot was summed up nicely in an episode of "South Park" a few 
weeks ago: "Pot makes you feel fine with being bored ... If you smoke pot, 
you may grow up to find out that you aren't good at anything." ... Harmless?
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens