I think that the advertising works. I have seen lots of documentaries on Meth, as well as the commercials. Of all the drugs out there I'd say that Meth would be the one that I would be least likely to do. I think the main reason for this is that it gets so much constant negative media exposure.

the reason i wouldn't do it has way more to do with the fact that i don't even like how caffeine makes me feel sometimes, so i don't see the appeal. also when it comes to this kind of thing, i prefer natural products over bizarre laberatory concoctions. that being said, i would guarantee you that if i were to try that drug, i would have no problem never doing it again. you can take that to the bank. and spare me your speech on physialogical addictive properties or the strength of the drug because i am a man of character and will so that shit can't touch me. i've heard it all before about shit that i have done and not cared about ever again, so i am not about to believe it.

Meth is one of the worst drugs I have seen the addiction effects of first hand.

No, everyone who uses it is not going to get addicted. However, it is one of the more addictive drugs out there these days and is EXTREMELY easy to get your hands on.

I have seen this drug singlehandedly ruin more than one family's lives. Not everyone has the outcome of these commercials, but I have seen first hand example after example of the same shit. I have been in the homes where meth use is rampant and some of these ads nail it.

I wish everyone was a smart and non-addictive as Obners. Unfortunately, day by day meth continues to advance its numbers of addictees.

this is pretty awesome.

you are probably the first person to ever think this.

i love that you are arrogant and naive enough to think its true.

well it has been true so far so why shouldn't i believe it? i'm not saying that people don't get caught up in that shit. i'm saying that the people who get caught up in it have problems that i don't seem to have. sorry if it upsets you. i realize that we are living in a culture that blames the drug instead of the user. i don't really want to participate in that myth.

oh you dont have to "participate" in it. but you should probably respect the lifes work of people a hell of a lot smarter than you and understand that oftentimes 'will' and 'character' have absolutely nothing to do with addiction. its very narrow-minded to think otherwise.

and, btw, that is EXACTLY what the videos are telling you.

Anyone who knows a junkie who admits to starting out wanting to be a junkie, raise your hand.

you are telling me that you know a lot of junkies who had no previous tumult in their lives? the reasons that i wouldn't personally do meth and the reasons i wouldn't become addicted are one and the same.

Oy. This one can't be nudged to lucidity.

so you don't think that the junkie has ever been a romanticised figure? i disagree.

is the assumption that everyone in here who thinks i am nuts is going on that the reason there are junkies is because some people never heard that some drugs are addictive? that seems silly to me.

I think the main thing is that you said you could do the drug once and walk away without any side effects. I believe Tentoze was just pointing out that what person has ever taken a drug with the intention of becoming a junkie.

Revisionist

These ads will likely be a colossal failure like just about every other Anti-Drug campaign. These scare ads have never worked and never will. Unfortunately, too many Marketing Geniuses have come to rely on entertainment rather than actual persuasion, so we get stuff that looks cool, but doesn't actually do anything.

But we'll keep on trying the same thing and expecting a different result.

i agree in a way.

instead of having "characters" portray what might happen, why not have actual footage of a meth den, someones arms rotting off from shooting up, someone twitching thats been up for 5 days picking at themselves, and someone dead from an overdose.

fuck actors, bring the real shit, how frightening and disgusting it is, and you might have a chance keeping folks away.

there is a culture that surrounds each drug and a stereotypical user as well. in my own experience with drugs, people are trying out that culture and lifestyle as much as they are trying the effects of the drug.

i know plenty of people who have messed around with meth and i don't know a single person who went through any difficulty with it. i'm not saying it isn't potentially dangerous, but there have been junkies throughout history. meth doesn't create them, they exist and they choose meth.

let me ask you this, do you think if you intoxicate people with meth against their will you are going to create junkies because the drug is so powerfully addictive?

I think that this is probably true. Anti-drug commercial's do nothing for me, but documentaries about Meth scare the hell out of me. I don't think that 30 seconds is enought time to effectivly persaude some one. I think the thing that is the most effective is seeing the harmful effects in person. For example I've seen a lot of people I know go bankrupt or drop out of school because of Coke, therefore I'm no longer tempted to try it. A better example would be when I decided to stop smoking weed because I saw how burnt out all of my pot head friends were becoming.

Couldn't you say the same thing about any commercial though? It's all a marketing game, propoganda even in some cases. I think there is a whole hell of a lot of subversive and subliminal messages in television advertisement. 30 seconds ins't enough time to convince anybody of anything, IMO. But, if marketeers and companies think that advertisements help sell their product then wouldn't it be true for selling the "anti-drug" product? At least on some level?

I think that it's easier to convince someone to do something rather than to convice someone not to do something. Commercials sell something, anti-commercials takes something away. I think that maybe if they tried to sell the drug free lifestyle they might be a little bit more sucessful. If you can make not doing drugs cool than that would be the thing to do. Kind of like how Ian Mackaye sold stright edge. I wonder how many punk kids decided not to do drugs because of him.

Wrong. For starters, subliminal shit doesn't work.

30 seconds—hell, 3 seconds—is plenty of time to get your foot in the door, if you do it right. Of course marketers think that advertisements sell their products, and advertising can persuade and influence people and their decisions, when it's done right.

I'm not saying you can't sell the idea of keeping kids from trying meth. I'm saying that time and time again, through fried eggs, Just Say No, "I learned it from watching you", and the gigantic waste of money that is D.A.R.E., various government agencies & the Ad Council have dumped everything into scare tactics that have obviously not worked.

In fact, there have been studies (that I'm not going to be bothered to reference) that have shown that these anti-drug PSAs actually increase curiousity about drugs, which could lead to more kids trying them.

I'm not against anti-drug ads, but I am against dumping money into something that isn't working.

(I'm also against bad advertising, which is pretty much everything you see on television, but that's a whole 'nother story).

If you ever do feel like referencing those stats, I'd love to see them.

It's not so much that I have them bookmarked and I'm lazy, it's just things I've read or heard over the years, and I don't feel like digging around Google to find them.

I only lightly skimmed these, so I'm not endorsing them, just showing how easy it is to find stuff on this crap.

Nevermind the fact that drug use hasn't been curtailed in any meaningful way after years and years of spending billions of dollars on crappy tv ads. That should be evidence enough.

Here's a half-ass one from Texas

Something from Slate

DARE doesn't work, from NBC

DARE doesn't work, from USA Today

DARE doesn't work, from the Detroit News

"Levant thinks critics are just jealous of D.A.R.E.'s success. "We're like apple pie," he says. "But I guess you can always find someone who doesn't like apple pie."

Thanks