07/12/07 09:40 - ID#40089

Terrible Anti Drug Commercial

I hate this commercial so much. What does it even mean? What is it trying to say and why does it think this is the way to say it? Do the people that made it think that it is somehow effective?

I can't stand pot, but this smug commercial makes me want to go out and find some and smoke it just to spite the idiots who condescend to everyone with this crap.

metalpeter writes at 06:21:12 07/13/07 - Comment #20766: I myself like some of the anti smoking and anti drug ads. There is another animated commercial that is along the same lines about how a dog is being neglected because the kid does weed. That one is from abovetheinflunace. I have checked out there site and think it is a good site and wish it expandend into lots of other topics. I don't know who put out this commercail. But I think that they are aimed at people who haven't tried drugs yet but will when they are older. I myself think that if someone wants to relax and have a joint no problem. The problem is that what happens a lot of times is that people do drugs to deal with things that they can and should deal with in a positive way. So when they are having a problem in stead of dealing with it they hide away and then use drugs as a crutch. What the ad is trying to do is let people know that drugs and specficly weed can change how you act. I think it is also trying to fight peer presure so when some kid who doesn't want to smoke weed but there budies are then they won't do it.

fellyconnelly writes at 04:48:41 07/13/07 - Comment #20762: you know... if they would quit focusing on marijuana and start making commercials about.. oh i don't know... meth? i might actually consider a bit of value to it... i think it is a bit more important to focus on the drug that seems to be turning the country into a bunch of soggy toothed trash trolls.

chico writes at 12:08:49 07/13/07 - Comment #20751: (e:drew) 's comment motivated me to do some Googling and I found a recent (2005) RAND report assessing the (still ongoing, of course!) "war on drugs". Maybe one reason why the ad campaigns (which I too think are idiotic) focus on pot is because many people still think of pot as a gateway drug to harder stuff, and if you can prevent kids from trying pot, you can prevent them from using coke, heroin, etc.

Here's what the RAND study (http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2005/RAND_OP121.pdf) said about the "pot-as-gateway-drug" issue (note the important point at the end, which fits with (e:bridgette) 's concern about alcohol):

< "While there is no doubt that some users move from one drug to another, it is not clear that use of one drug "causes" or even encourages use of others. In particular, use of marijuana has been called a gateway to other drug use, the notion being that marijuana use increases the likelihood of using more dangerous drugs like cocaine or heroin. This notion is at least plausible: users' appetites for other drug experiences might be whetted by pleasurable use of marijuana. The gateway hypothesis also appears to draw support from the fact that marijuana users are many times more likely to become hard-drug users than are people who do not use marijuana. Furthermore, people who use marijuana and hard drugs at one point or another almost invariably use marijuana first. However, such evidence is not by itself sufficient to support a causal relationship between marijuana and other drug use. It has been shown that the apparent elevation in risk of hard-drug use among marijuana users could also be explained by two factors in combination: differences in opportunities to use various drugs (marijuana is more readily available to young people than hard drugs) and the possibility that individuals differ in their propensities to try any drugs...The question of marijuana's gateway status has thus not been settled. It is noteworthy that marijuana's inferred gateway effect is a linchpin of the argument for differentiating marijuana control policy from alcohol control (although an argument can be made that alcohol might also be a gateway drug)." >

Hmmm... can you imagine what the beer/wine/liquor industry would do if the government funded public service announcements that showed a dog telling its owner not to drink alcohol? And can you imagine the television industry's reaction if beer/wine/liquor companies all decided to pull their commercials in protest of such PSAs?

drew writes at 10:23:07 07/12/07 - Comment #20737: There was this "War on drugs" ad campaign that government research actually showed to cause MORE drug use, and it still, after the research, got an increase in funding. I wish I had the info in front of me so I could be more accurate, but it cracked me up.

bridgette writes at 10:09:15 07/12/07 - Comment #20736: if her dog is talking to her, i dont think it's weed that she's smoking! Seriously, these commercials insult kid's intelligence. Drunks hit little kids on bikes, not potheads. See, people that don't smoke pot think these commercials are ridiculous, so people that do smoke pot think they're completely outlandish. Little 5 year olds are bringing heroine to daycare, 8th graders out in AZ are getting busted for being involved in Meth rings... and these stupid idiots want to waste mad $$$ making dumb ass commercials about pot that no one pays any attention to. How sad!