Greegor
January 25th 07, 07:53 AM
Drugs are bad, but exaggeration of problems motivated by FUNDING is bad
too.
http://www.slate.com/id/2101/
hey, wait a minute: The conventional wisdom debunked.
High and Mighty
The lies of the anti-drug propaganda machine.
By Seth Stevenson
Posted Friday, July 24, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET
There's a new It Girl on television these days--a pale, sexy,
raccoon-eyed waif who looks like an advertisement for shooting heroin.
The twist: The commercial is an ad for not shooting heroin. The waif
smashes china and plumbing fixtures in the commercial, screaming
angrily about how heroin will ruin your life.
The waif spot is one of a series of new anti-drug commercials that the
government will pay $1 billion to air over the next five years. The ads
are produced by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America--the best
funded and best connected propaganda machine in America today. It's
backed by the president, the speaker of the House, both parties in
Congress, the biggest of big corporations and foundations, the
advertising industry, and the major media.
The slickness and pervasiveness of the campaign conceals one flaw: The
message--that all drug use leads to disaster--is a baldfaced lie.
Founded in 1986 by a group of advertising execs, the PDFA's stated goal
is to produce and place ads that persuade kids not to try drugs, to
"denormalize" adult drug use, and to make drug use "less acceptable."
Its latest TV ads--created pro bono by leading ad agencies--will
saturate prime time this year thanks to a budget in excess of what Nike
or Sprint spent on TV advertising in 1997. (The PDFA once relied on
donated airtime, but in these flush days network time is at a premium,
hence the requisition of taxpayers' funds.) The budget dwarfs even the
public service ad campaign run during World War II in support of the
war effort.
The ads focus solely on kids. In addition to the waif ad is one that
depicts a little girl answering questions. Lesson: Her mother has told
her not to talk to strangers but hasn't told her drugs are bad. In
another ad, a father and son sit at the breakfast table in silence.
Lesson: This time could have been spent talking about how drugs are
bad.
Some have attacked the efficacy of these ads. Indeed, no study
conclusively demonstrates a link between them and reduced drug use. Few
have slammed the hypocrisy of the politicians and the ad agency
staffers behind this campaign, who can't all be drug virgins. But the
greater scandal is the free pass that reporters, most of whom have
imbibed, have granted the PDFA's propaganda blitz. (The lone exception
is the New York Times' Frank Rich.)
Let's be clear: Drugs can be awful. They can destroy lives. But for
every person who has died or ended up in a gutter, millions have
dabbled in drugs and still led productive, sane, successful lives. This
is indisputable. In fact, some long-term drug use can be harmless--and,
yes, even kind of fun. But the PDFA model offers only the salvation of
abstinence or the perdition of addiction. The PDFA's Web site
http://www.drugfreeamerica.org/
suggests you tell your kids marijuana is "a bad drug that can hurt your
body."
http://www.drugfreeamerica.org/tips.html
While it's true that marijuana smoke (like tobacco smoke) contains
carcinogens and the medical data suggest it compromises the immune
system and can also lead to short-term memory loss, honesty demands
that the silent dad in the PDFA ad admit to his son that he smoked a
good deal of pot when he was young, still occasionally lights up at
parties, and has turned out just fine.
Instead, the PDFA insists on using your tax dollars to lie to your
kids. Should teens hate and fear a friendly, well-adjusted, responsible
classmate who occasionally rolls a spliff? Should the culture
denormalize someone who does good work in a steady job, hurts no one,
and once in a blue moon sniffs some blow at a club? Are you on a
hell-bound train if you take mushrooms? Is all drug use drug abuse? The
PDFA tells your kids "yes" when the correct answer is "no."
Perhaps the most shameful thing about the PDFA propaganda campaign is
that its leaders know better, having used drugs themselves. Bill
"Didn't Inhale" Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and Al Gore have all admitted
to having tried drugs in their early days. How can they tell kids pot
is an evil gateway drug when they're stellar proof that it isn't?
To succeed, a propaganda campaign need not convince its audience; it
need merely suck the oxygen out of the lungs of its foes. Prior to its
alliance with the government, the PDFA merely hogged the drug debate.
Now it stands to monopolize it, thanks to its ad dollars and its
friends in the media. July 9, PBS's The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer ran,
without comment, all the PDFA's new ads. (The Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, responsible for 50 percent of the PDFA's funding, also
donated over $500,000 to PBS last year.) Media luminaries from ABC News
anchor Peter Jennings to Washington Post Co. mogul Katharine Graham
have supported the PDFA since its inception. The editorial side of
Graham's Post has only compliments for the PDFA, while the advertising
side has donated ad space to it. (The paternalism of the PDFA's
campaign has sunk in at major newsrooms. Click here to find out more.)
http://www.slate.com/id/2101/sidebar/48904/
We don't trust Madison Avenue to tell us the truth about fabric
softener, so why are we letting it brainwash our children about drugs?
Indeed, if the PDFA had a shred of integrity, its ads would be battling
alcohol and tobacco, America's two most injurious drugs and the two
most popular among teens. (The PDFA no longer takes money from Philip
Morris, RJR Reynolds, and Anheuser-Busch or other booze and smokes
companies, but even so, the alcohol connection remains:
Margeotes/Fertitta and Partners, which created the waif spot, also
designs Stolichnaya vodka ads.)
In a rational world, the Republicans who decry the anti-tobacco
campaign as another appendage of the nanny state would see through the
PDFA campaign and reiterate their belief that Americans can be trusted
to make informed choices. For instance, contrary to what the
raccoon-eyed waif suggests, many heroin users are able to use their
drugs and conduct functional lives. What makes heroin users' life so
crazy is that their dependence on an illegal drug forces them to enter
a criminal underworld. The PDFA ignores these subtleties. Likewise with
cocaine: Most of the 22 million Americans who've tried it have had no
trouble walking away from it. And pot? No one has ever overdosed.
By confusing propaganda with education, the PDFA stands to reap the
whirlwind. We don't lie to kids about alcohol. Everyone knows from an
early age what it can do--and that most people can handle liquor, but
some people can't. Eventually kids see through the drug hysteria,
usually by the time they turn 12 or 13 and start observing drug users
for themselves. When they discover they've been lied to, they stop
trusting the liar--their parents or teachers or TV commercials--and
start trusting their peers. Whatever real opportunity we have to reach
them vanishes. Simply letting kids know what the real risks are,
without hyperbole, should be enough. Madison Avenue propaganda is
counterproductive.
If you missed the link in the article, here's more on how newsrooms
have succumbed to the anti-drug hysteria.
http://www.slate.com/id/2101/sidebar/48904/
The newsrooms at the Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times,
and many other papers have started giving drug tests to new hires. No
one has spoken up against this intrusion despite its absurdity. (Do
reporters operate heavy machinery? Wouldn't any subpar job performance
be grounds for not hiring in itself? Why is it unacceptable for a
reporter to smoke a j-bird now and again but OK for fellow staffers to
be on maintenance doses of Prozac?)
too.
http://www.slate.com/id/2101/
hey, wait a minute: The conventional wisdom debunked.
High and Mighty
The lies of the anti-drug propaganda machine.
By Seth Stevenson
Posted Friday, July 24, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET
There's a new It Girl on television these days--a pale, sexy,
raccoon-eyed waif who looks like an advertisement for shooting heroin.
The twist: The commercial is an ad for not shooting heroin. The waif
smashes china and plumbing fixtures in the commercial, screaming
angrily about how heroin will ruin your life.
The waif spot is one of a series of new anti-drug commercials that the
government will pay $1 billion to air over the next five years. The ads
are produced by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America--the best
funded and best connected propaganda machine in America today. It's
backed by the president, the speaker of the House, both parties in
Congress, the biggest of big corporations and foundations, the
advertising industry, and the major media.
The slickness and pervasiveness of the campaign conceals one flaw: The
message--that all drug use leads to disaster--is a baldfaced lie.
Founded in 1986 by a group of advertising execs, the PDFA's stated goal
is to produce and place ads that persuade kids not to try drugs, to
"denormalize" adult drug use, and to make drug use "less acceptable."
Its latest TV ads--created pro bono by leading ad agencies--will
saturate prime time this year thanks to a budget in excess of what Nike
or Sprint spent on TV advertising in 1997. (The PDFA once relied on
donated airtime, but in these flush days network time is at a premium,
hence the requisition of taxpayers' funds.) The budget dwarfs even the
public service ad campaign run during World War II in support of the
war effort.
The ads focus solely on kids. In addition to the waif ad is one that
depicts a little girl answering questions. Lesson: Her mother has told
her not to talk to strangers but hasn't told her drugs are bad. In
another ad, a father and son sit at the breakfast table in silence.
Lesson: This time could have been spent talking about how drugs are
bad.
Some have attacked the efficacy of these ads. Indeed, no study
conclusively demonstrates a link between them and reduced drug use. Few
have slammed the hypocrisy of the politicians and the ad agency
staffers behind this campaign, who can't all be drug virgins. But the
greater scandal is the free pass that reporters, most of whom have
imbibed, have granted the PDFA's propaganda blitz. (The lone exception
is the New York Times' Frank Rich.)
Let's be clear: Drugs can be awful. They can destroy lives. But for
every person who has died or ended up in a gutter, millions have
dabbled in drugs and still led productive, sane, successful lives. This
is indisputable. In fact, some long-term drug use can be harmless--and,
yes, even kind of fun. But the PDFA model offers only the salvation of
abstinence or the perdition of addiction. The PDFA's Web site
http://www.drugfreeamerica.org/
suggests you tell your kids marijuana is "a bad drug that can hurt your
body."
http://www.drugfreeamerica.org/tips.html
While it's true that marijuana smoke (like tobacco smoke) contains
carcinogens and the medical data suggest it compromises the immune
system and can also lead to short-term memory loss, honesty demands
that the silent dad in the PDFA ad admit to his son that he smoked a
good deal of pot when he was young, still occasionally lights up at
parties, and has turned out just fine.
Instead, the PDFA insists on using your tax dollars to lie to your
kids. Should teens hate and fear a friendly, well-adjusted, responsible
classmate who occasionally rolls a spliff? Should the culture
denormalize someone who does good work in a steady job, hurts no one,
and once in a blue moon sniffs some blow at a club? Are you on a
hell-bound train if you take mushrooms? Is all drug use drug abuse? The
PDFA tells your kids "yes" when the correct answer is "no."
Perhaps the most shameful thing about the PDFA propaganda campaign is
that its leaders know better, having used drugs themselves. Bill
"Didn't Inhale" Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and Al Gore have all admitted
to having tried drugs in their early days. How can they tell kids pot
is an evil gateway drug when they're stellar proof that it isn't?
To succeed, a propaganda campaign need not convince its audience; it
need merely suck the oxygen out of the lungs of its foes. Prior to its
alliance with the government, the PDFA merely hogged the drug debate.
Now it stands to monopolize it, thanks to its ad dollars and its
friends in the media. July 9, PBS's The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer ran,
without comment, all the PDFA's new ads. (The Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, responsible for 50 percent of the PDFA's funding, also
donated over $500,000 to PBS last year.) Media luminaries from ABC News
anchor Peter Jennings to Washington Post Co. mogul Katharine Graham
have supported the PDFA since its inception. The editorial side of
Graham's Post has only compliments for the PDFA, while the advertising
side has donated ad space to it. (The paternalism of the PDFA's
campaign has sunk in at major newsrooms. Click here to find out more.)
http://www.slate.com/id/2101/sidebar/48904/
We don't trust Madison Avenue to tell us the truth about fabric
softener, so why are we letting it brainwash our children about drugs?
Indeed, if the PDFA had a shred of integrity, its ads would be battling
alcohol and tobacco, America's two most injurious drugs and the two
most popular among teens. (The PDFA no longer takes money from Philip
Morris, RJR Reynolds, and Anheuser-Busch or other booze and smokes
companies, but even so, the alcohol connection remains:
Margeotes/Fertitta and Partners, which created the waif spot, also
designs Stolichnaya vodka ads.)
In a rational world, the Republicans who decry the anti-tobacco
campaign as another appendage of the nanny state would see through the
PDFA campaign and reiterate their belief that Americans can be trusted
to make informed choices. For instance, contrary to what the
raccoon-eyed waif suggests, many heroin users are able to use their
drugs and conduct functional lives. What makes heroin users' life so
crazy is that their dependence on an illegal drug forces them to enter
a criminal underworld. The PDFA ignores these subtleties. Likewise with
cocaine: Most of the 22 million Americans who've tried it have had no
trouble walking away from it. And pot? No one has ever overdosed.
By confusing propaganda with education, the PDFA stands to reap the
whirlwind. We don't lie to kids about alcohol. Everyone knows from an
early age what it can do--and that most people can handle liquor, but
some people can't. Eventually kids see through the drug hysteria,
usually by the time they turn 12 or 13 and start observing drug users
for themselves. When they discover they've been lied to, they stop
trusting the liar--their parents or teachers or TV commercials--and
start trusting their peers. Whatever real opportunity we have to reach
them vanishes. Simply letting kids know what the real risks are,
without hyperbole, should be enough. Madison Avenue propaganda is
counterproductive.
If you missed the link in the article, here's more on how newsrooms
have succumbed to the anti-drug hysteria.
http://www.slate.com/id/2101/sidebar/48904/
The newsrooms at the Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times,
and many other papers have started giving drug tests to new hires. No
one has spoken up against this intrusion despite its absurdity. (Do
reporters operate heavy machinery? Wouldn't any subpar job performance
be grounds for not hiring in itself? Why is it unacceptable for a
reporter to smoke a j-bird now and again but OK for fellow staffers to
be on maintenance doses of Prozac?)