Pompo

Drug ads could trigger tokers
9/13/07|NOW Magazine| By Nate Hendley

Do anti-pot ads just make folks want to spark up? Health Minister Tony Clement better find out before he launches that no-nonsense anti-drug campaign he's been threatening.

"Canada has not run a serious or significant anti-drug campaign for almost 20 years," Clement sniffed at a speech to the Canadian Medical Association last month.

But now he's ready with a multi-departmental two-year $64 mil effort involving Health Canada , the Department of Justice and maybe even the prime minister's office . The multi-pronged initiative includes a crackdown on gangs and illicit drug production as well as money for treatment. And, says Christian Girouard, spokesperson for the Department of Justice , there's $10 million for "preventing illicit drug use.'' According to Clement, these measures would include public health messages -- namely, an ad blitz, part of the "plain truth'' Clement wants young people to hear.

Problem is, anti-drug media campaigns have been a flaming flop south of the border, and maybe even an actual incentive to pot-puffing.

In 1998, the U.S. kicked off its five-year National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign aimed at scaring kids away from drugs, particularly weed, with a series of TV ads linking casual marijuana use to terrorism, sexual violence and unplanned pregnancies.

But the U.S. 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that while past-month drug use among 12-to-17-year-old Americans had declined slightly (from 11.6 per cent in 2002 to 9.9 per cent in 05), it was rock-steady among 18-to-25-year-olds (20.2 per cent in 2002 versus 20.1 per cent in 05).

An August 2006 report by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) sounded a similar alarm. The Anti-Drug Media Campaign "was not effective in reducing youth drug use," states the report, which goes on to recommend that Congress stop funding the program.

But it was the work of Dr. Harvey Ginsburg and Maria Czyzewska, of the psychology department at Texas State University in San Marcos that reached the most stunning conclusion. "Our preliminary study revealed that college students generated more negative comments to televised anti-marijuana ads than anti-tobacco ads, often perceiving them as exaggerated and unbelievable," Ginsburg writes in a report published May 2006.

More than that, students in their study reported that the pot spots actually made them more likely to spliff up.

Ginsburg tells NOW this is called the "boomerang effect," a phenomenon that occurs when "the message is perceived as weak, inconsistent with prior knowledge and when the source's credibility is suspect,'' he writes. He says he hopes the Canadian government treads carefully.

The feds can't say they weren't warned.

Buzzby

When you lie to people about something they know better than you do, they're going to be pissed, amused, or both. Most people I know think the old marijuana PSAs are really funny. The more recent ones are just stupid. Of course, once you lie to people and they know it, they're not going to believe anything else you have to say. That means that when the DEA/ONDCP/NIDA tells the truth about cocaine, crack, heroin, and meth, those who don't know the truth will think they're being lied to again.

The prohibitionists' lies about marijuana make them impotent to fight the spread of drugs that can actually hurt people.

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pkster8235

They need to just legalize it already and realize that they are just wasting their time and money.
If even a third of the money used to stop marijuana use/production was used for something useful.. say.. more doctors/nurses so we don't have to wait 6 hours to get into the emergency room.. or towards funding for universities so our students don't have to pay 10k a year to get an education.. well, we'd have a much better society and a brighter future.

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We treat mishaps like sinking ships and
I know that I don't want to be out to drift..

Dank Perception

Sooner or later these people are going to realize they've wasted their lifes on lying to people and when it is legalized... They are going to get a bunch of letters, from us high potheads simply stating" Hahahahahahahahaha guess what I'm doing now?"

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I forgot

Jake

You can't make an anti-pot advertisement without distortions, lies, or exaggerations.

And kids are smarter than you think, they pick up on it. All it does is remove credibility from the government.

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Buzzby

How about, "Don't waste the opportunity to get a good education. Stay sober for school."

My daughter started her first year of teaching a couple of weeks ago. She has some students who always show up for class stoned. She tells me that they're such space cases that they might as well not show up at all.

Jake

"stay sober in school" would be impossible for the government to do because it implies that drugs are acceptable outside of school...

THC Fiend

My tax dollars... down the drain.


Actually I'm a bit of a hypocrite since I work for the government getting $700 a week and I just play solitaire all day and take 3 hour lunch breaks.

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"Nietzsche is dead."
-God

brevity is... wit

reggie_the_dog

Your daughter may have noticed the people that cannot concentrate while high. I went to high school stoned all the time, nearly every day junior and senior year. I went to class stoned at the university too and continued to do so in grad school. Some of us are capable of getting stoned and functioning.

SirSmokaALot

Eh... I guess you are lucky to be able to do so. I can't function for shit when I'm stoned basically but when i smoke just a bowl or two, and that's when I'm able to focus the best basically. It allow me to finish tasks one at a time so it enable me to finish them at ease without flipping out, and having that "block" in my head when I'm sober. I get the "block" when i feel overwhelmed by all the homeworks i receive throughout the week. When i smoke weed that problem ain't a shit to me lol. I learned this a little bit after turning 17..... man I wish i knew this stuff earlier to establish a good habit of maintaining good grades instead of getting stoned off my ass daily.