Setting: Some random "Dad's" library at home with 2 teenage kids in it. One has a bong with smoke billowing out of it on a sofa with his back to us.. One kid facing us at a desk in a swivel chair.
The scene skips forward 2 maybe three times with the guys chuckling and the chair squeaking repeatedly.
All of the sudden the kid at the desk has a pistol in his hand.
Desk kid: "Wow, look at this"
Bong kid: "Cool, is it loaded?"
Desk kid: "I don't kn..BAM"
Black screen
Voice over: "Sometimes drugs can mess with your sense of reasoning"
[size=2]From the Partnership for a Drug-free America[/size]
OK.OK. That's not verbatim, but probably not too far off, but WTF?
The bong did not slide a magazine in that 9mm, cock and fire it, presumably, killing the Bong kid. Some stupid ass left a loaded weapon, in his house, in an unlocked desk drawer with teenage kids living there. The fucking father must have partaken of the herb earlier, screwed up his reasoning, and left the gun there.
This may go without saying. Here goes: Do they all think we are complete and total brainless morons?
"Well, honey that settles it then. I am definitely going to tell little Tommy not to smoke that wicked Marryjowana as it could kill 'em. If he tries to sass me, I may have to pistol whip him, though."
That one has surpassed the "By buying drugs we are supporting terrorists. You don't want to support those meanies, do you?" commercial that the federal govt. debuted during the Super Bowl.
Ugh!, which is the word I would normally employ here does not suffice to display my maxed out levels of irritation. So how about: Jesus, squeeze us!
Just goes to show you, no Public Service Announcement about anything has ever worked at all. Most just make you want to take up a habit or beat your wife to spite the producers of these commercials.
There was actually a study that found that one of the national Drug Free campaigns was having no effect whatsoever.
On a side note. I was busy raving about the commercial after it aired. My wife started laughing and my 18 mo. old daughter was sitting in her Hi-chair and I realized she had said something while she munched on Cheerios. She is just learning to sound out words we repeat to her or she hears us say often.
Excerpt from above scene:
___________________________________
Bong kid: "Is it loaded"
Desk kid: "I don't kn...BAM!"
My Angel: "Uh, Ooooohhh."
Black screen..........................
______________________________________
Needless to say, much of my venom went away, but now that she is in bed I found it again.
Worse. You know those stupid anti-tobacco ads? TRUTH? I loathe those, especially the one where the woman abandons the crying baby that turns out to be a doll with a note pinned giving second hand smoke stats. Anyway, these stupid-as-hell ads are apparently working. They've actually made the biggest difference yet seen in teens smoking stats.
So now the people behind the TRUTH anti-cigarrette ads are doing the anti-drug ads. And those are the ads you guys are talking about.
Spread Truth.
Nicotine-laden tobacco: far more damaging than any schedule 3 drug, yet mysteriously legal.
It's interesting just how bad a lot of the anti-drug ads are. I think the core reason they suck so bad is that there is a political bias against addressing a core issue: a lot of people enjoy drugs; drugs can create (often a temporary) state of happiness. Even if you believe that the evils of drugs outweigh the pleasures, to just DENY that there are any pleasures is foolish, and not supported by millenia of human experience. This seems to be a common problem in American politics - I often feel like advocates are always all or nothing: "my position is 100% correct and any slight deviation is 100% wrong and evil". In fact, I've heard people (like Bill O'Reilly, whom I hate) taking the position that saying *anything* positive about drugs is "encouraging bad behavior". If you wear blinders and refuse the see the upsides of things you oppose (and refuse to see the potential merits of the opposing position) then you can only blame yourself when your "solutions" keep failing and failing and failing and...
I mean we've had what, 20+ solid years of heavy duty anti-drug enforcement, highly funded anti-drug propaganda, increased enforcement, mandatory minimum sentences, military intervention, etc, and have we made any real lasting reductions in overall drug use (of the heavy drugs- I know marijuana has declined from its 70s peaks)? For the stuff like coke, crack, speed, heroin and so on its my understanding that we haven't really made any substantial long term reductions as compared to the beginning of the drug war.
Oh well. I guess we'll just keep living in denial and shoveling useless and blind propaganda at the problem.
Dan
And now, in the interest of being positive, I'm going to relate my favorite anti-drug ad.
28 year old kid holding bong is talking to two younger kids and telling them that he's been smoking pot for 10 years and nothing has ever happened to him.
Then a woman's voice calls from downstairs. He busily waves his hands to disperse the smoke: "Son? Did you get a job today?"
White letters fade in: Marijuana - nothing ever happens to you.
So... true.
Those truth ads are obnoxious as hell. I almost hate to hear they are working. I guess the in-your-face MTV, reality TV, Jack-ASS watching kids like that kind of schtick in entertainment and as life affirming tools.
"I mean, when I thought I was just going to get cancer and a few less popular diseases from the tar and nicotine, I had my reservations about smoking. When the Truth kids told me I was also smoking pee-pee, I threw my pack of Kools right out the window. Cigarettes are bio-degradeable, right?"
My poor little girl is going to act stupid and like these same ignorant things to be popular, isn't she? Oh, the horror!
Yup. One of these days I'm going to hunt down these people and beat the shit out of them. I've never smoked, never had any desire too, but I find those adds personally insulting. The worst part is they completely ignore the whole personal responcibility angle. 400,000 people are killed a year by Tobacco? Uh, no. 400,000 smoke themselves to death a year. There's a difference. And I doubt any connection between statistics and these advertisements.Worse. You know those stupid anti-tobacco ads? TRUTH? I loathe those, especially the one where the woman abandons the crying baby that turns out to be a doll with a note pinned giving second hand smoke stats. Anyway, these stupid-as-hell ads are apparently working. They've actually made the biggest difference yet seen in teens smoking stats.
I'm pretty tired of these obscene, baseless lawsuits where idiots are reward for their own stupidity with trillions of dollar (almost not an exageration). Anyone with a legitimate complaint is probably already dead.
Agreed. Of course the lawyers would argue otherwise.Originally Posted by Brad Grenz
I'm pretty impressed with the Truth ads myself. When I studied advertising in college one of our projects was to design an anti-smoking campaign for teens. My college being in Richmond this was a little gutsier than it sounds. The angle I came up with was very much like what the Truth guys are doing - except maybe not as 'street theatre'. You see, I really believe that most kids, who are the targets of this campaign, may not know as much as you or I about who the tobacco industry is. One thing all kids are sensitive to is being made a fool of - especially by adults. Coming out with a visually memorable way of illustrating some of the less appetizing facts about smoking - and those folks who are making a killing by, well, killing you is a good way of communicating the message.
And, as has been noted, this message is working.
I'm pretty fond of the Truth commercials, myself. I don't know why, admittedly, but as someone who is pretty anti-cigarettes, there's something about those commercials I like. Something about just cutting to the chase...
No offense to those who smoke (and that includes several of my good friends), but I wish cigarettes were illegal. At the very least, illegal in public places. (Yes, I know, in some states they are.)
You mean Nabisco?You see, I really believe that most kids, who are the targets of this campaign, may not know as much as you or I about who the tobacco industry is.
Get your laws off my body!!! (this would work better if you were notoriously pro-choice)but I wish cigarettes were illegal.
Look, kids smoke because it looks cool. They know it will kill them, they don't care. Maybe they all figure in 50 years they can sue and take home 12 billion dollars. See, all these tobacco lawsuits are just encouraging teens to light up!
Drugs and cigarettes should both be government regulated and taxed. It wouldn't be very cool to buy your government-produced cancer stick at the pharmacy, would it?
Marijuana: far less addictive and more beneficial than many drugs legally used as perscription painkillers, but mysteriously not legal, and deemed unworthy even for medical purposes.
Don't ask it to make sense. It doesn't.
[quote="Brad Grenz"]Not quite. I agree that they may smoke their first cigarette because their friends are, or McCelebrity DuJour did in that movie, or whatever. But they smoke their second cigarette because of the nicotene-induced buzz. Myself, I'm a casual smoker. That means I have a pack of cigarettes sitting in a drawer at my house and it will last a month (or one night if I'm drinking with friends). Why do I smoke? Because it feels good. The same reason people smoke marijuana or drink beer.Look, kids smoke because it looks cool.
Legalize pot? No. The last thing you need is someone legally encouraging kids to get Chinese-eyed and goofy. What would the ad campaigns look like?
They know they've been told that, and it's somewhere in the back of their mind. Showing a pile of body bags and pointing out that that's the daily death toll from smoking brings that (deservedly) back to the front, demanding consideration and allowing a more relevant choice.Look, kids smoke because it looks cool. They know it will kill them, they don't care.
"That stuff will kill you"
"yeah yeah.... I know"
"No, really. Kill. Dead. Think about it."
I mean, hell, it's still their choice. All this does is match the industry's effective, feel-good advertising with an equally effective counter. I applaud the Truth guys for it.
I see where you are coming from, but.....
Kids do not like being made a fool of by adults, but being talked down to and/or patronized by their peers using obnoxious ads seems just as bad. I guess other teens treating them as being ignorant to the hazards of smoking is preferable than being told by your parents. Maybe the ads are targeting the stupid kids who cannot connect the dots of cigarettes = cancer = pre-mature, agonizing death.
I like the ads better that have a group of kids sitting around, one sparks up, and asks if he/she wants a toke. The kid stops their conversation with the group, says no thanks, and continues talking. The peer pressure and danger of doing something bad gets the kids to smoke. Showing that it is not a necessary act in a social gathering and that life goes on as normal when you do "Just say no" makes more sense to me.
Hundreds of body bags or crawling wind up dolls seem like, as you said, "theater" that is not realistic. It may make them giggle and think, "Huh, didn't know that" for a second and maybe not smoke that day. However, when presented with the option in a group setting again, I believe the "no thanks" commercial will stick with them more than the cup full of Urea the Truth kids were trying to get Cigarette execs to drink. Yeah it is funny and over-the-top , but it seems pretty shallow, disposable and easily forgotten.
OTOH, maybe I am just old and no longer the in touch, hip, and edgy cat of my youth. Kids still call each othe "cats and kittens", right?
That is a good ad.
My point, which I may not have made entirely clear in my ramblings, is that the death/cancer angle seems like such a far off and unlikely possibility. Teens have that whole invulnerability thing going and the concept of something as small as smoking a few cigarettes now causing death in 30-40 years does not compute. Zeroing in on the "sure people do it, but that does not mean you have to" angle of the ad I cited appears more plausible, IMO.
First, I've never smoked or done any kind of illegal drugs -- in spite of spending years working in bar bands.
That said, I'll play the Devil's advocate:
I agree, Ty. The death angle really doesn't fly with the demographic that believes themselves indestructible. Also, the statement that kids do it because it's cool is regurgitated nonsense reaching back to the days of "Reefer Madness." What makes it cool? Adults are flailing their arms and pleading with teens not to do it. Teens are giving adults a mental middle finger every time they light up. The more that adults panic, the more likely kids will rebel.
Kids are playing the odds, and the odds are that they'll try drugs and turn out all right. Most kids aren't looking to become drug lords. As for tobacco, it's ubiquitous and in spite of that, life expenctancy is still increasing in the US. If smoking takes 50 years to kill you, there's plenty more to worry about in those five decades. It ends badly for all of us, so why worry about the semantics of death?
Well said.
I took an impromptu poll at work which confirmed my theory about the TRUTH kids ads. This poll is as accurate as any online poll, composite game review score, or Iraqi election.
What do your children think of the TRUTH anti-smoking ads?
Results*:
100% of parents I asked said their kids thought the ads were dumb and did not convince them not to smoke. They are too smart for the ads. Period.
These are conclusive findings that I may post in a medical journal in the near future.
[size=2]*Results are based on 1 out of 1 child (12 YEARS OLD) as all the other parents had already left the office by the time I took the poll.[/size]
I never even thought 'this is your brain on drugs' made any sense. Aren't fried eggs much better than raw eggs? I guess I've never experimented with raw eggs, so maybe that's just a dumb assumption.
And there's a current radio ad that starts out reading a meaningless number like 23,726 and then talks about how marijuana hurts your thinking abilities. The closing is something like, "What was the number I said at the beginning of this message?...SEE. It's hard enough without drugs...". WTF? They demonstrate the likelihood of forgetting meaningless info because it would be really forgotten if you were on drugs. How terrible that would be. I mean is. Or something.
Tyjenks: I really don't see Truth ads as being patronizing. They're just saying what the hell they want to say and the viewer can take it or leave it but they are saying with with attitude and some irony. If smoking is a way of fitting in with peers or giving the finger to adults offering them the same reasons a parent would not to smoke simply won't work. As has been pointed out we're talking about a demographic that sees itself as immortal. What they do show is that there are some adults, in more precise terms murderous corporate assholes and their lawyers, who want teens to smoke in order to make money. This takes the conflict about smoking away from child vs. parent or even peer vs. peer into the arena of whether a kid wants to be the patsy for some suits or wise up.
Admittedly I haven't talked to many kids about it but I have seen articles that cite statistical correlations between markets with the Truth ads and teenage smoking statistics. These ads seem to work.
If those stats are correct, I am glad they are working with some kids. I guess the old adage, "If one person is saved", holds true here.
Maybe some of my irritation is how transparent they seem to be to me. At the age of 33 with a 1 year old kid, I often still do not think of myself as a learned adult. I still go to clubs and rock concerts and, in my mind, feel like I know what kids think. I may be sorely mistaken. After all, I do not vote a straight Democratic ticket as I did in my idealistic youth. I actually vote for the person not the party. When did that happen?
Also, I would hope that when my kid(s) are old enough to be confronted with these situations they would not need an Ad which beats them about the head and neck with it's message. At that time, my wise old teachings would have already taken root. Wishful thinking, I know, but one can hope.
It's funny how effective the anti-drug propaganda is, since the first thing that came to your mind was "what about the children?" For what it's worth, I wasn't advocating that we allow kids to toke up, any more than I'd advocate that we should give kids bottles of whiskey. In fact, my comment was directed at medical uses of marijuana, and the bizarre logic by which our government considers it a Bad Thing when we allow the use of far more addictive (and potentially dangerous) drugs such as Morphine and Codein and Diazepam without batting an eye. It's a stance so illogical and unscientific that the government is forced to actually restrict research into the matter, on the off-chance that someone might compile some empirical data demonstrating how irrational our drug policy really is.
The whole anti-drug campaign really rolled off me when I was a kid. My parents, however, were so effective at talking to me about drugs and smoking that I have never tried an illegal substance nor taken a drag from a cigarette. My Mom's smoking speeches always ended with: "Remember how your grandmother and grandfather died? Cigarettes did that to them". My grandmother had emphasema and my grandfather had to have a lung removed due to lung cancer and later got pnumonia (holy bad spelling, Batman) in his other lung and died from that.
I think parents need to be the first line of defense. Admittedly my family had a little more anti-smoking ammo than most, but it was still my parents talking to me that stopped me from ever smoking. They weren't overbearing, driving me to rebel against them, they just talked to me about it and instilled in me a disdain for the old cancer sticks.
And, while we're talking about it... my least favorite ad so far has been on the radio. I don't remember word for word, but here is the jist of the commercial:
(baby crying in background)
Man: (drag sound) Wow, this is good stuff
Woman: (drag sound) yeah, I feel great
Man: hey, want to go get some snacks
Woman: Sure, I'm hungry
(sound of door closing and car starting)
Woman: oh, hey, what about the baby
Man: she can take care of herself
(sound of car driving).
Nararator: Marajuana distorts your sense of priorities.
Huh?
Right, because they definitely aren't doing it now. Legalizing would only make it ATTRACTIVE to them.
Where's the eyes rolling smiley? Oh yeah: :roll:
I am! Seriously, Europe has virtually no legal restrictions on underage drinking, yet it's not a problem there.It's funny how effective the anti-drug propaganda is, since the first thing that came to your mind was "what about the children?" For what it's worth, I wasn't advocating that we allow kids to toke up, any more than I'd advocate that we should give kids bottles of whiskey.
Exactly. How hard is that? I have already thought of telling my daughter the same sorts of things.
"Remeber when our doggie Patches died. He went away and will never come back because he was sick. If you smoke, the same thing can happen to you."
You do not wait until children are teens and then have them watch a PSA video about the hazards of smoking in 9th grade at school. It has to be ingrained from birth. Birth I tell ya'!
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