No doubt most of us who live in the US and watch even a little television are familliar with the recent anti-drug commercials that blame the other kind of dopers for terrorism.
Why aren’t people who eat raisins or put honey in their coffee also featured in thos commercials? For that matter what about SUV drivers or any fossil fuel users? Raisins, oil, honey, and a number of other commodities are sold by people with ties to terrorism. Certainly oil is a much bigger fund raiser than heroin poppies.
My pojnt is, while I think drug addicts are intentionally retarding themselves, it seems that misleading anti-drug messages were designed by people even more retarded. Does this not have a likelihood to boomerang and undo any thing it might have done in the first place?
Wouldn’t it be better to show some drooling moron or some toothless wonder riding a bus with his had on sideways as examples of why drugs are stupid rather than state buying drugs funds death and overlooking the many more legal things that do the same? Is the US government stupid or what?
Don’t forget diamonds. I’d guess that diamonds and Oil are the two biggies, but drugs are probably right up there.
What I don’t understand is why there a no ads pointing out that it’s the drug war that makes the price of drugs high enough to be of interest to terrorists. If there were no drug war, we’d probably have to add poppies to the farm subsidies bill.
You’d think that the people who want to legalize drugs would be jumping at the chance to spike that misleading add campaign right back into the faces of the drug warriors.
I think right now it’s too risky to be associated with the perception of terrorist support. McCarthyism is a dim enough memory that there could very easily be another round of red-baiting.
I wonder, though, how raisins, honey, diamonds, etc. are tied to terrorists? I haven’t heard this, how specifically do these industries have ties to terrorism? I’m not trying to argue, I am truly interested in finding out about this.
Oil does for sure, as bin Laden inherited his money from oil, which has funded his whole thing.
I always figured those drug/terrorist commercials were referring to the Taliban and the manufacture of opium/heroin. This, of course, is ridiculous because the Taliban is not a terrorist organization- Al Qaeda is. Also, the kids talking in the commercial are very similar to arguments teenagers make to their parents about smoking marijuana. Specifically marijuana. Which is bullshit because I’ve never read of any terrorist organization funding attacks on the US through marijuana sale.
Actually, I believe NORML took out a full-page ad a while ago in a major paper (Washington Post? NY Times?), suggesting that the Drug Czar supports terrorism by keeping the prices high.
Well Afghanistan’s main legal cash crops are Honey, Raisins, and fur. The anti-drug commercials seem to imply (and I also recall one that mentioned specifically) heroin use and that Afghanistan is a poppy producer.
My point is that it is just as likely that a honey or raisin producer in a region supports terrorism financially as it is likely that a poppy scraper does. Moreso in fact as when one talks of Islamic terrorists then you must consider their own prohibitions against drugs, even drugs used to subvert an enemy.
As for weed. Well all the best natural weed is grown in NoCal anmd Southern Oregon. I have probably never smoked foreign weed other than seed stock from greenhouses in Holland.
I don’t see why these commercials surprise you, zen101. The government has a long history of hiding/distorting information about the drug war. I remember some of the doozies Officer Friendly told me in our school assembly in 7th grade. My personal favorite: “Marijuana can cause boys to develop breasts.”
Thanks for the info zen101. I thought statements like “I’m just experimenting” or “I’m not hurting anybody” were like statements teenagers told their parents after they got busted smoking weed. I never caught any heroin reference, but I can’t claim to have seen every commercial or to have paid too much attention to them.
It doesn’t surprise me though. The anti-drug commercials often blur the lines between marijuana and hard drugs. I remember one “testimonial” in a commercial, where a girl says something like “I tried everything- heroin, coke, PCP, hash.” Throwing hash in there with a bunch of narcotics. And ‘hash’ I thought, was a very sly word to use, considering the popular misconception on what hash is and its correlation to marijuna.
I was going to say the same thing you did earlier, but didn’t. Definitely everything I smoke is either local or from ‘heady areas’ that are scattered around the country (but in high concentrations in norcal and the pacific northwest). It is much more likely that what I buy comes from anti-war activists than it does from terrorists. Which makes me very happy.
See, it is stuff like this that really shoots the people that don’t want youngsters to start doing drugs in the foot. Even a child with a scrap of curiosity and intelligence can see that these messages are pretty much propaganda BS. The result: the entire message looses credibility, along with the parts that may actually be true (health concerns and the like).
And we wonder why the war on drugs isn’t going very well.
I have to agree with you, Binarydrone. I don’t do illegal drugs. I have never done illegal drugs. But, damn, those smoking weed=supporting terrorism commercials made me want to start.
Wasn’t there a recent study done showing that anti-drug ads weren’t actually very effective in discouraging drug use among teenagers? And then the government decided that if the program wasn’t working, it obviously needed more funding. I’ll see if I can dig up a cite.
I’m this close to selling T-shirts that read “Support terrorism – Drive an SUV,” just so I can parody those commercials and piss off SUV owners in the process.
I too thought that. My first thought was of FARC holding Colombian peasants under the barrel of the gun so the drug cartel could get their dope in time.
Actually, when I think of this, I’m not sure whether to think the government has their heads farther up their arse than all the non-nuclear power green hippies (wait, is there a difference?) or whether they’re actually incredibly intelligent. Hell, everybody here knows that the American public is about as intelligent as a box of Junior Mints. They can be influenced any which direction if something has the word “patriot” or “terrorism” in it. (Aliens are riding the sun into the Earth in an attempt to wreak havoc and terrorism upon the people! Now drink this pretty Kool-Aid in various shades of patriotic colors). From their POV, that series of commercials are ingenious.
However, I will agree with you I resent their labeling of marijuana as a harsh drug. I can’t think of one person who has died of overdosing on marijuana, or anything like that. Tobacco and alcohol cause more deaths x500 I’m sure of it. I don’t have any cites, but if anybody else does, I’d appreciate it.
