According to this story

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2002/05/15/drug-ads.htm

the anti-drug commercials are pretty much useless. In fact...

The survey, conducted by the private research firm Westat and the University of Pennsylvania, actually charted an increase in drug use among some teen-agers who saw the television ads.

What do you think? Can you think of any ideas to curtail teenage drug use that might be more effective?

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2002

Answers

Hmmm. Really, the whole War On Drugs has been a phenomenal waste of money.

Have any of y'all read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell? He makes an interesting argument when he talks about why kids start smoking: it's not that smoking is cool - but that smokers are cool. The ads aimed at keeping kids off of tobacco failed because they didn't address the fact that kids didn't start smoking because they didn't care about having tarry lungs or a virtual guarantee of cancer in fifty years - heaven knows, it's not news to any kid that smoking is horrifyingly bad for you. They started smoking because someone they thought was cool happened to smoke.

I imagine you could trace that back to Hollywood, or whatever, but it seems that the problem with these ads is that they miss the point completely. Surely with all the money that is pumped into these campaigns they could find a way to address why kids do drugs - it's pointless to deal with the potential consequences, as they aren't shocking or surprising to any teen worth his salt. They need to deal with why these kids start using drugs in the first place if they're going to get their message across.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2002

Now there's a big surprise.

Why is it that once we become adults, so many of us completely forget what is like to be an adolescent? Kids like to test boundaries, they have less respect for rules and laws then adults do and follow them, usually, only when they are given a compelling reason to do so.

Also, when dealing with kids, 100 hours of telling them to not do something can be undone by doing that very thing yourself. So when you tell your kids not to do drugs, while you are drinking a beer, what do you think the message is? Can we expect kids to understand or buy into the concept that drugs are bad when every anti-drug promo is bookended by beer commercials?

Now, I am not equating alcohol with heroin. But I can see where a teenager who smokes some pot on occasion having a hard time finding the difference between that and Dad having a few beers at Uncle Steve's Memorial Day BBQ.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2002

First, I think the new ads are particularly silly. If all this money we're spending on illegal drugs is going to support terrorists, why not legalize them and the bad guys will go broke? That's the message I got, anyway.

On Crossfire (!) the other day, they were hammering the government guy about how ineffective the ads were, and then Tucker Carlson went off on the previous government strategy of paying TV shows to insert anti-drug messages into their shows. While that approach makes me cringe, I'm sure it's a lot more effective to see Buffy turn down a cigarette than it is to see that girl with the frying pan smash her kitchen to illustrate what happens when you take heroin.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2002

Really, the whole War On Drugs has been a phenomenal waste of money.

What Teri said. The real problem with "Just Say No to Drugs" is the same as "Just Say No to Sex" and "Just Say No to Alcohol": the instant a youth learns that one joint won't kill you and cause your lips to rot off and your grades to plummet and your friends to ostracize you, then the whole message in its entirety is out the window.

Why do we spend billions of dollars to treat media-savvy adolescents like drooling babies? I'll never understand...

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2002

I never did drugs - I hate codeine and won't take it, so I can't imagine that I'd like the real deal. But a lot of my students have and most of my friend did.

I think it's all about good parenting. I was scared as hell to touch pot. My parents would have killed me. (My dad also told me that it would kill my ability to do higher math - the pathetic thing is that it mattered to me).

The commercials make it look good. What is forbidden is attractive. They tell you not to do drugs, but then the commercials put the culture in shades of black and red with pulsing rock music. Well, then, that's not attractive at all. It's like the "You smoked pot and your parents found out" commercial. Anymore, their parents probably BOUGHT the pot! Jesus.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2002

As a teenager, I used all the drugs and I had all the sex and I smoked all the cigarettes. The PSAs (public service announcements) didn't affect me in the least, because no matter how often some one said that taking acid will make you insane, I kept on dropping hits. My friends were doing the same thing. Drug education had zero effect on me, except...

The crack threats. Crack scared me to death. 3 of my best buddies even started smoking it, and I wouldn't go near it, no matter how fabulous they made it sound. I wish I could put a finger on why I refused to even taste crack, but would happily use and do anything else that came by.

I'm honest enough with myself to recognize that in my mind, crack was a poor person's drug, the drug that trashy dirty people used, and that was probably the biggest deterrent of all. The beautiful people in the movie Less Than Zero weren't hitting the pipe, and my ultra-mod friends weren't either.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2002