I got to thinking while sitting through those irritating anti-drug ads you get here in the states. Is there some written/unwritten rule against them mentioning illegal drugs other than marijuana by name ? They mention pot alot, and sometimes alcohol, or talk in generic terms about “getting high” but never mention heroin or cocaine, etc.
I seem to remember one about meth labs being bad but not about it being a bad idea to take meth (there were also those “faces of meth” photos but I thought that was just something that one police dept did not part of a national campaign) .
Is there some explicit policy behind this ? I was hoping for actually factual information rather than debate on drug policy (hence why this is in GQ).
Most likely, “they” are trying to head off drug use at the “source”, so to speak. Since “they” consider marijuana a gateway drug, it makes sence to “them” to preach about the evils of marijuana. “They” figure that, if a kid’s already “hooked” on pot, it’s no use telling them how bad the other, “dangerous” drugs are, because the kid’s going to become hopelessly addicted anyway.
Since mj will make you wreck your car and kill your brother, and convince you to have unprotected sex with strangers at a party, it is a very bad idea to experiment. Once you realize that, you won’t fancy trying other, harder drugs.
They used to have a takeoff on the frying-egg one “This is your brain on drugs”, where a girl (I think somebody I ought to remember, only I don’t. Also I almost couldn’t stop spelling “remember” right there.) says “This is your brain on heroin” and smashes the egg with the pan.
On Sunday nights, A&E airs a show called Intevention to intervene with drug users. There is usually a commercial during every commercial break that is a help number for getting off of a list of drugs. I find it interesting that the onle drug Not mentioned in this quite extensive list is marijuana, but I guess since its not physically addictive, its not necessary for rehab (is it?)
Oh, my god, that was awesome. “This is your brain… (egg) this is your brain on drugs… (sizzle) this is your job… (crash) this is your car (smash) this is your FAMILY (crash) this is…”
in re: the OP, they are also trying not to name over-the-counter drug options for those kids dumb enough to hear “Don’t drink Sterno” or “don’t sniff glue” and think “Really? I can drink Sterno? Hey, it’s legal for me to buy it! Cool! Oh, and where’s that airplane kit I got for Christmas?”
Holy crap… that Rachel Leigh Cook ad was better than I remembered…
Lately I’ve heard plenty of anti-meth ads on the radio. It goes in reverse order of a ruined life, and the steps it took to get there. Something like “before I was in jail, I killed somebody, before I did that I felt great, before that I used meth, before that I was happy …”
“They” are also looking at it in terms of 50 years of research (some, admittedly, flawed). I’ve always thought that it made more sense to look at the “gateway” issue more in terms of gateway personalities. If you’re the type of personality who will try marijuana knowing that it is illegal and potentially harmful to your health, then you already lack some psychological barriers to trying “harder” drugs. There’s a basic cost-risk analysis there in which risk wins in that type of mindset. That probably explains why marijuana use is so high in the high school and college set, and then starts drifting downward; when the risks of getting a $50 marijuana citation are attached to the potentially losing a job thing, thinking once isn’t enough. Thinking twice might even turn into thinking thrice.