Did Jeff Spicoli fund Al-Qaeda?
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be SUV-Drivin’ Druggies
A popular news item made the rounds yesterday, regarding ads that tout the role SUV’s owners play in supporting terrorism. Essentially, the ads make the claim that if you drive an SUV, you are supporting regimes in oil-producing countries that support terrorism. The ads are very similar to a widespread anti-drug campaign that claimed money spent on drugs helps to support terrorists.
Although I applaud any effort at SUV-reduction on our highways, it’s the link to the drug/terrorism ad campaign that I want to discuss. I have been outraged by those commercials from the very first time I saw them, and I am more than a little amused to see Arianna Huffington’s group try to co-opt the Administration's use of the Terror Boogeyman.
But the drug/terrorism commercials go beyond being infuriating; I believe they are dangerous and counter-productive.
Why Am I So Bent Out Of Shape About This?
Well, I’m glad you asked. This being a public blog and all that, let me be clear but careful about what I say: Kids (and adults) need to be educated about drugs in a realistic way that will resonate. Scare tactics that are obviously either not true, or are clearly not based in the reality that kids and adults see, are going to be counter-productive.
I can tell you with 100% certainty that no drug user is going to stop buying or using drugs because somebody says it’s going to promote terrorism. Even if that were true, (and I don't believe drugs do any more to fund or arm terrorists than, say, the U.S. Government) it wouldn’t make anybody stop. Anybody who really believes that will do any good is either someone who knows nothing about why people take drugs, or they are simply trying to demonize drug users with a very handy new demon that has come down the road, in an effort to turn public opinion overwhelmingly against drugs by linking them to our greatest national fear. I believe the latter.
What Drug Education Should Be
Kids and adults don’t need to be threatened into stopping drug use. Won’t work, never has. It’s just not real to them. You have to make it real. I have a son who will someday be confronted with these issues. My own personal belief is that there are some drugs that I won’t have a problem with him being involved with, IF (and it’s a big IF, always) he’s mature enough to keep his life in order, and has a support group around him so that things don’t get out of hand, in either the very short or very long term. None of that would stop me from worrying about what he’s up to, but I can’t isolate him from drugs. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. But I do want him to know what he’s in for, potentially.
Drug education that tells my son "Losers do drugs. Drugs are evil and will ruin your life" isn’t particularly helpful in my view. Why? Because the chances are very good that one of his friends, or someone he knows will be a drug user. Does that make them a "loser"? Should Linus not associate with them anymore? Should he do an intervention? How is Linus to reconcile this preachy mandate with the obvious reality that Americans are medicating themselves in a variety of legal and illegal ways every single day? Either there are a lot of losers with ruined lives out there (true, sadly), or maybe the drug situation isn’t as black and white as the ads make it sound.
Fortunately, there are other ads making the rounds on TV now. These ads are scary and real. They aren’t "This is your brain on drugs"; that stuff wasn’t real, either. Any drug commercial that makes you laugh while you are actually on drugs isn’t an effective anti-drug commercial.
This is real: Two teenage kids are sitting in the den of a house. One sits behind a nice desk, the other in an overstuffed chair. They are pulling one bong hit after another; the bong is actually shown, which is a major step in anti-drug images. The commercial is done in cuts. First cut: Smoke flows out of the bong (Empty the chamber!) as the two kids just talk about random teenage stuff. Second cut: Kids continue talking, but a but more slurred and less focused. Smoke billows out of the bong yet again. Third cut: More smoke. Kids are extremely stoned. The one behind the desk finds a gun in the top drawer, and tells the kid in the chair how cool it is. He asks if it is loaded; the kid in the chair says "No" as the screen fades to black. Then you hear a gunshot. The words "Drugs impair your judgement" appear on the screen.
Nobody laughs at that commercial.
There’s another great one with a young girl and a guy at a party, done in the same sort of time lapse fashion. The girl gets more stoned throughout the night, with some help from the guy. By the end of the party, she’s not able to resist his advances. Why? Because her judgement is impaired.
Not much funny about that one, either.
That’s real, and that’s scary, and I can guarantee you that an awful lot of drug users didn’t just disregard those commercials. Because drugs DO impair your judgement. That’s the lesson Linus needs to understand, not some preachy bullshit about "losers" and "winners", or hypocritical statements about supporting terror. Things that shouldn’t happen can happen when people are on drugs. Bad things. Not always, not even usually. But they can and do happen, and there are too many people walking around who have stories to tell that are too much like what happens to the kids in those commercials.
Now, personally, when I see that first commercial, I think it works a LOT better as an anti-gun commercial. I mean, absent the gun, all that happens to those kids is they get real baked and try to order a pizza with an Oreo topping. But I know that’s not really the point; I think the commercial is very good at what it sets out to do. Show people what drugs are really like. Hire former or current drug users to make the commercials. Show the bong or pipe. Show the progressive slide to passivity. Demystify it. Get real. Because kids live in a very real place, more real than we ever want to imagine.
It’s not a "Just Say No" world anymore; it never really was. When told to say no, some kids would legitimately respond with "Why?" We need to be able to tell them in a way that will hit home, that there are risks involved, and they may not be able to control those risks. We don’t help them by preaching what we wish were true, and they can clearly see is false; we do it by sharing what we know is real.
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9:31:08 AM 
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