High and Mighty
There's a new It Girl on
television these days--a pale, sexy, raccoon-eyed waif who looks like an
advertisement for shooting heroin. The twist: The commercial is an ad for
not shooting heroin. The waif smashes china and plumbing fixtures in the
commercial, screaming angrily about how heroin will ruin your life.
The waif spot is one of a
series of new anti-drug commercials that the government will pay $1 billion to
air over the next five years. The ads are produced by the Partnership for a
Drug-Free America--the best funded and best connected propaganda machine in
America today. It's backed by the president, the speaker of the House, both
parties in Congress, the biggest of big corporations and foundations, the
advertising industry, and the major media.
The
slickness and pervasiveness of the campaign conceals one flaw: The
message--that all drug use leads to disaster--is a baldfaced lie.
Founded in 1986 by a group of advertising execs, the PDFA's
stated goal is to produce and place ads that persuade kids not to try drugs, to
"denormalize" adult drug use, and to make drug use "less acceptable." Its
latest TV ads--created pro bono by leading ad agencies--will saturate prime
time this year thanks to a budget in excess of what Nike or Sprint spent on TV
advertising in 1997. (The PDFA once relied on donated airtime, but in these
flush days network time is at a premium, hence the requisition of taxpayers'
funds.) The budget dwarfs even the public service ad campaign run during World
War II in support of the war effort.
The ads focus solely on kids.
In addition to the waif ad is one that depicts a little girl answering
questions. Lesson: Her mother has told her not to talk to strangers but hasn't
told her drugs are bad. In another ad, a father and son sit at the breakfast
table in silence. Lesson: This time could have been spent talking about how
drugs are bad.
Some have
attacked the efficacy of these ads. Indeed, no study conclusively demonstrates
a link between them and reduced drug use. Few have slammed the hypocrisy of the
politicians and the ad agency staffers behind this campaign, who can't all be
drug virgins. But the greater scandal is the free pass that reporters, most of
whom have imbibed, have granted the PDFA's propaganda blitz. (The lone
exception is the New York Times ' Frank Rich.)
Let's be clear: Drugs can be awful. They can
destroy lives. But for every person who has died or ended up in a gutter,
millions have dabbled in drugs and still led productive, sane, successful
lives. This is indisputable. In fact, some long-term drug use can be
harmless--and, yes, even kind of fun. But the PDFA model offers only the
salvation of abstinence or the perdition of addiction. The PDFA's Web site suggests you
tell your kids marijuana is "a bad drug that can hurt your body."
While
it's true that marijuana smoke (like tobacco smoke) contains carcinogens and
the medical data suggest it compromises the immune system and can also lead to
short-term memory loss, honesty demands that the silent dad in the PDFA ad
admit to his son that he smoked a good deal of pot when he was young, still
occasionally lights up at parties, and has turned out just fine.
Instead, the PDFA insists on using your tax dollars to lie
to your kids. Should teens hate and fear a friendly, well-adjusted, responsible
classmate who occasionally rolls a spliff? Should the culture denormalize
someone who does good work in a steady job, hurts no one, and once in a blue
moon sniffs some blow at a club? Are you on a hell-bound train if you take
mushrooms? Is all drug use drug abuse? The PDFA tells your kids "yes" when the
correct answer is "no."
Perhaps
the most shameful thing about the PDFA propaganda campaign is that its leaders
know better, having used drugs themselves. Bill "Didn't Inhale" Clinton, Newt
Gingrich, and Al Gore have all admitted to having tried drugs in their early
days. How can they tell kids pot is an evil gateway drug when they're stellar
proof that it isn't?
To succeed, a propaganda campaign need not
convince its audience; it need merely suck the oxygen out of the lungs of its
foes. Prior to its alliance with the government, the PDFA merely hogged the
drug debate. Now it stands to monopolize it, thanks to its ad dollars and its
friends in the media. July 9, PBS's The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer ran,
without comment, all the PDFA's new ads. (The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
responsible for 50 percent of the PDFA's funding, also donated over $500,000 to
PBS last year.) Media luminaries from ABC News anchor Peter Jennings to
Washington Post Co. mogul Katharine Graham have supported the PDFA since its
inception. The editorial side of Graham's Post has only compliments for
the PDFA, while the advertising side has donated ad space to it. (The
paternalism of the PDFA's campaign has sunk in at major newsrooms. Click to
find out more.)
We don't
trust Madison Avenue to tell us the truth about fabric softener, so why are we
letting it brainwash our children about drugs? Indeed, if the PDFA had a shred
of integrity, its ads would be battling alcohol and tobacco, America's two most
injurious drugs and the two most popular among teens. (The PDFA no longer takes
money from Philip Morris, RJR Reynolds, and Anheuser-Busch or other booze and
smokes companies, but even so, the alcohol connection remains:
Margeotes/Fertitta and Partners, which created the waif spot, also designs
Stolichnaya vodka ads.)
In a rational world, the Republicans who decry the
anti-tobacco campaign as another appendage of the nanny state would see through
the PDFA campaign and reiterate their belief that Americans can be trusted to
make informed choices. For instance, contrary to what the raccoon-eyed waif
suggests, many heroin users are able to use their drugs and conduct functional
lives. What makes heroin users' life so crazy is that their dependence on an
illegal drug forces them to enter a criminal underworld. The PDFA ignores these
subtleties. Likewise with cocaine: Most of the 22 million Americans who've
tried it have had no trouble walking away from it. And pot? No one has
ever overdosed.
By
confusing propaganda with education, the PDFA stands to reap the whirlwind. We
don't lie to kids about alcohol. Everyone knows from an early age what it can
do--and that most people can handle liquor, but some people can't. Eventually
kids see through the drug hysteria, usually by the time they turn 12 or 13 and
start observing drug users for themselves. When they discover they've been lied
to, they stop trusting the liar--their parents or teachers or TV
commercials--and start trusting their peers. Whatever real opportunity we have
to reach them vanishes. Simply letting kids know what the real risks are,
without hyperbole, should be enough. Madison Avenue propaganda is
counterproductive.
If you missed the link
in the article, on how newsrooms have succumbed to the anti-drug
hysteria.
