The anti-smoking people want me to start smoking. That's the only explanation I can come up with for their relentlessly irritating ad campaigns. They're secretly trying to drive me to tobacco use by being preachy, inaccurate, and over-the-top. And I don't even like to smoke. But I would if it would stop smug 20-something "Truth" people from entering my living room and preening about the evils of big tobacco. I'll take evil corporate guys in suits over smug pseudo-hipsters any day.
It was bad enough when they were just being hysterical in documentary format with their little pieces of man-on-the-street performance art. The damned things were ironic about everything except the fact that they were being as manipulative with facts and statistics as the big, evil tobacco companies they attacked. But all of that paled before the new Syke 9 campaign.
Where to begin? Well, there's the fact that most people stopped saying "syke" in the mid '80s sometime. Well, except for my sister. And then they did weeks of ads where they didn't even hint that this is about cigarettes, instead giving us an energy drink that advertises like Axe body spray. If it weren't for the obvious allusions to cigarette smokng in later ads, I'd be convinced that they were trying to warn young men about the dangers of overusing cheap cologne. And a worthy cause that would be.
And all of this in a pathetic effort to make it seem like smoking isn't cool and opposing smoking is. Nice try guys, but you should have had a nice long chat with the anti-drug folks before sinking millions into an ad campaign the primary purpose of which is apparently to get me so annoyed that I throw something at my flat screen TV, permanently damage it, and become so depressed that I skip right past tobacco and start on heroin. It is impossible to make cigarette smoking or drug use appear uncool via commercials, cartoons, dramatic school presentations, or short films. The Force is too strong in them to be affected by the lameness that is the PSA. The only way to really pierce their cool aura is to grab a 43 year-old meth head, complete with missing teeth and oozy complexion, and have her introduce herself to children individually. (While chain smoking Marlboro Reds, of course.) Don't let her talk though--other than mentioning how much she loves getting high and smoking cigarettes. You don't want her sharing about the time she did lines with Keith Richards and undermining the whole project.
Alright, the title is a bit of a misnomer, since to my knowledge there are no PSA wars, but I was thinking about the different anti-drug campaigns that are aimed at children and that's the title that leapt to mind.
Back when I was a kid, the big theme was Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No," which I also associate with the "This is Your Brain on Drugs" fried egg commercial and the "I learned it from watching you," kid. I have no idea whether they were all connected or not. Nowadays, it seems that the big theme is "_____ is my anti-drug." (Though this doesn't count the anti-smoking commercials which, even though I'm a non-smoker, make me want to go out and immediately inhale an entire carton of Marlboro Reds. Could they have found more smug and sanctimonious people to be in the commercial? And I love how the campaign is called "the truth" even though they play pretty fast and loose with the truth sometimes themselves. But I digress. I just really, really hate those commercials. If teen smoking quadruples over the next 10 years, I completely blame that ad campaign.)
Anyway, I don't think that any of the anti-drug commercials are all that effective. But they do fascinate me from a cultural point of view. Generally, I give the edge to the '80s drug commercials. Look what they contributed in terms of satire and parody. Hell, you can still crack up a room of 30-somethings by hysterically shouting, "You Dad! Okay? I learned it from watching you!" Whereas the newer Whatever-is-my-anti-drug seem way too touchy-feely. I guess you can make fun of them a little (Unprotected Sex is My Anti-drug; Crime Sprees Are My Anti-Drug), but it doesn't seem to have the same punch to it. Mostly, they seem to me like the kind of thing that advanced placement kids with lots of extracurricular activities identify with. (Being a Goody-Two-Shoes is My Anti-Drug.) No one is going to be looking these ones up to get a laugh 20 years from now. So that's a big fail in my book.
Interesting article I found recently, that I happen to agree with. While I don't know for sure where NORML is getting ALL of their statistics from, I can definitely see how non-violent marijuana arrests would outnumber violent criminal arrests in most, if not all states. That in and of itself is a telling tale about our flawed laws regarding the use of pot in our country. If it ever becomes decriminalized, not necessarily legalized, we can actually have our tax money being put to better use by jailing more violent criminals than someone who wants to eat Doritos and watch TV in the evenings. Here's the link:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/30/frank.marijuana/index.html
As far as legalization is concerned, just imagine the amount of tax money the state could save in the prison systems, and the amount of tax money they would earn at the open market with marijuana? I would keep the same rules in effect for driving under the influence of course, and all work places could keep their drug testing in place since by all means NO ONE should be driving while high or drunk, nor should anyone be high or drunk while at the job place. It's a win-win situation when you get down to it. The only problem is that the government has a very difficult time admitting fault when it comes to anything. (See the Civil Rights movement).
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