We’ve all seen them: the stupid egg in the frying pan, the cartoon “pushers” hanging around school yards, the pothead that shoots his friend. Anti-drug commercials all seem to be made by people who have never once seen a joint or had any contact with real life drug culture. These commercials are so unrealistic and idiotic that anyone who is doing drugs just laughs at them.
My question is this; Do these commercials have any real effect at all on whether kids do drugs or not? Has anyone on the board ever “said no” because of an anti-drug ad? Do you know anybody that has? I sure don’t.
Doesn’t the government know what a joke these ads are? Do they really think they’re accomplishing anything or is this just a tactic to make it look like they’re doing something about drug “education” without having to really do anything substantive?
How much money is spent on these stupid things and couldn’t that money be better spent on drug treatment and real education?
I say these ads are a waste of money and an insult to the public intelligence. Does anyone have a different opinion? Does anyone think they do any good?
Let;s not forget the inane slogans either: “Marijuana, it’s more dangerous than we all thought.”
NO II’S NOT!!
I fear there may not be much debate here because I can’t see a way to defend these things but I’d love to hear an opposing viewpont here.
I was. Are you saying I am naive? I made a decision not to partake of drugs that my nation dictates as illegal. I hardly consider it unjust. Heck, I’m also influenced by advertisements that tell me I should use protection if I have sex to prevent an unwanted pregnancy/STD’s/AIDS. Does that make me naive?
And personally, I believe Marajuana IS more dangerous than many people think. But the problem is that they’re not seeing the big picture- they’re looking at what Marijuana does to people (physically). What about people that move on to harder drugs? All the people I know that are/were addicted to heroin/morphene initially smoked marijuana. Now it is true that there will be people who don’t move on to harder drugs. There will be some people that try it, and decide its not for them. But I would rather not risk it.
In my case, the anti-drug commercials of my youth influenced me to TAKE them! I am now a responisble (??) adult who has no problems paying my bills or making my way in the big wide world. I can surely say my life would have been DIFFERENT if I hadn’t smoked or snorted, but BETTER?—hmm, not too sure about that.
All the people I know that have used hard drugs ate french fries. That doesn’t mean there is a causative link.
As far as being influenced by the commercials, I recall an ocassion or two in which I opted to go to Denny’s for breakfast after seeing the frying pan.
Are you implying causation?
Or are you just presenting a non sequitur observation about how people who get addicted to heroin like to smoke pot?
“More dangerous than we think” makes some assumptions about who’s doing the thinking. While I don’t think it’s more dangerous than I think, I’m not so sure about some other people.
But, no, My decisions not use various recreational drugs were NOT based on info I received from anti-drug commercials. I actually went to the the city library, the library in my high school and the local U. (pre-internet days)
Ah - I see I am late to take issue with that faulty bit of logic assuming causation. That’s fine by me.
Nope - OK - it sounds as though the US anti drug ads are a bit wilder than the ones here - (eg people shooting their friends) - but no - the things are just too silly.
I don’t have any plans to try heroin, for instance, but it has nothing to do with any dimly thought-out government campaign.
btw - Remember “Reefer Madness”? I wonder if that influenced anyone, apart from giving people a pretty good laugh.
Well, there IS a causative link when all these people had stated the reason they moved on to harder drugs was because Marijuana just wasn’t doing for them anymore.
Perhaps I have a bias here, since I have seen Marijuana destroy the lives of some of my friends and family. But I see no reason I should take my chances with something like Marijuana. I don’t feel like I ‘missed out’ on anything by abstaining from illegal drugs during my youth. If anything, I feel that the best decision I ever made was to stay drug-free my whole life.
I understand there will be people who can smoke dope ten times a day and still be competent brain surgeons/professors/lawyers/etc and that illegal drugs did absolutely nothing detrimental for their life, but I think that it’s a gamble. Abstaining, for me, was a choice I made because I didn’t want to risk being unable to handle taking drugs. I didn’t want to risk the remote chance that I might ruin my life because I was unable to control my addiction. I didn’t want to flirt with the possibility that drugs might interfere with school or getting a job. Some people are willing to take risks with things like this, but I am not.
A psot hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The vast majority of marijuana users do not use harder drugs.
An awful lot of heroin addicts also smoked cigarettes before anything else.
Incubus, I wasn’t really looking for a pro/con drug debate, and I’m not saying there aren’t legitimate reasons to stay drug free. I was really just curious about the efficacy of the ads, which, imo, are silly and dishonest.
I was heavily influenced by drug education during Jr High and its actually those classes that I feel kept be away from harder drugs. Biochemistry courses in university also played a huge role in my decision to stay away from harder drugs.
But Diogenes made a point that I wanted to start a new thread on when he pointed out the lack of ‘drug experience’ that law makers have (consider the movie Traffic). If you haven’t tried marijuana, are you really capable of deciding the fate of a nation? This is actually a logical falacy, but I think its important. My fews of marijuana and alcohol changed dramatically before and after experience.
And sorry Incubus but you are very very naive. Its clear to many of us that you have no real understanding of the ‘drug culture.’ The statement of “marijuana as a gateway drug” is soooooo overblown that it should get to be its own logical falacy. You have no idea how many people have tried (and continue to use) marijuana and stop there. And how many people skipped marijuana and went straight to harder stuff. If you want to point at a gateway drug blame alcohol. There is absolutely no justification for alcohol to be legal and readily available and marijuana not to be. You really should weigh in on the two other treads here and here if you feel strongly enough about it.
And to answer the OP, everyone laughs at those commercials, but I think they provide a sufficient deterent to younger people to help guide them in a better direction. The unfortunate part, is that they are backfiring and causing people like Incubus to make political decisions instead of personal/moral decisions.
Here’s a bit of irony for you. From “High Times” magazine’s column, 1001 thoughts on dope. Marijuana was regularly used by Heroin addicts to ease withdrawl symptoms. The following was a common anthem among the patients in rehab:
Amazing grass
how sweet the smell
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost
but now I’m found
Once hooked, but now I’m free.
If it is so overblown then how could it have happened to my peers? Are you saying they were just playing along with the government’s misinformation to confuse me?
Diogenes, I am sorry I started to slip into a pro/con drug debate. This is something I feel very strongly about, and I understand that my opinions about the matter are not very popular on this board.
The reason I posted on this debate and made a fallacious buffoon of myself was because as exaggerated as some of the commercials were, I saw firsthand some of that kind of stuff really happened. Now it is probably likely that it was a huge coincedence that some isolated incedents not characteristic of typical reactions/lifestyles caused by marijuana use happened around me.
Well, then why DIDN’T it happen to my peers? The point many of us are trying to make is that its unfair to blame marijuana for all your friend’s problems. I’m sorry that you had such awful experiences, but you need to look beyond correlation and aim towards causation. Were there any other factors that might have caused/led them towards using and becoming addicted to harder drugs?
With that in mind though, you are very right to be worried about addiction. Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, and heroine are all very addictive substances, and some people are more prone to addiction problems than others. I can remember a lot of friends growing up that said, “I don’t want to try alcohol because I’m afraid of becoming an alcoholic.”
I only wish more people said, “I don’t want to try french fries because I’m afraid of a heart attack…”
