As drug usage drops, ads are becoming more direct, more violent, and more dramatic. In the advertiser's defense, they are catering to a less receptive audience as time goes on. Take a look at the evolution of these ads over the decades.
1970's: Everybody's Doing It
During the decade of the 1970s, ads were PSA-based and incorporated less pop-culture than the 80s. Advertisers believed they could focus their attention on the feel-good agenda drug users would experience. The image to the left is Ethan Persoff's scan of a weird anti-drug comic from 1970 called Users are Losers.In the 70's, one-third of the population of the United States, or 11 states, decriminalized small-quantity marijuana possession. It was a time where more than half of the population admitted to using in the previous month and one out of 10 people admittedly used at least once a day. In a University of Nebraska report, only a third (35 percent) of American high school seniors believed that people who smoked marijuana regularly risked harming themselves.
The 1936 cult classic Refer Madness was the brunt of many jokes in the 70s. In 1971, the film was discovered by NORML founder Keith Stroup in the Library of Congress archives, and was purchased by Stroup for $297, then made it the gem of pot smokers and college campuses. Being that the film was originally funded by a church group with radical motives, the film quickly became ammo for drug users to discredit any anti-drug advertisements.
Today these ads would undoubtably be seen as government propaganda, depicting worse-case-scenarios and unbelievable side effects. They were focused on an emotional response, playing on the highs drug-users experienced and what they could expect their future.Obviously targeting psychedelics to try to get people to avoid having a hallucinogenic experience doesn't make sense. Check out Hanna-Barbera's anti-drug PSA below, which I'm sure would be much more enjoyable high.
And to close, a magician who can actually bend reality.
1980's: Just Say No
Ah, how the era has changed. One president's wife spouts off about drugs and a whole country's attitude changes about MJ. In the mid-1980s, attitudes regarding drug use evolved from “acceptable and harmless” to “addictive and dangerous.” Celebs were popping up left and right with new ways to scare the public about using harmful drugs.
Right. Because we should trust the man who spends all day in a colorful playhouse with a talking armchair, now sitting in a smokey room, to discuss the harmfulness of crack. Something's not quite right that in the seriousness of the topic, Peewee still finds in necessary to slick his hair down and flaunt the red bow tie.
This is also the era of "This is Your Brain," the controversial anti-drug campaign that had egg enthusiasts in a tizzy. The campaign, lead by The Partnership for a Drug Free America, was coined "Fried Eggs" and ran well throughout the 80's.The “Fried Egg” TV spot was so well-known that it was parodied on shirts, posters, and even on Saturday Night Live. A decade later in 1997, a new version (this one focusing on snorting heroin) was created with actress Rachel Leigh Cook. Here are both versions:
1990s: The Lost Generation
The early 1990s proved to us that fried eggs really make you not want to use drugs. In a joint study from Leading Business School Professors at Yale SOM, NYU Stern, London Business School, and Baruch had these findings in 2002:
"Anti-Drug Advertising Works... This study evaluated the effectiveness of drug-education messages from the PDFA from 1987 to 1990, measuring whether the advertising campaign was associated with a change in adolescents' drug use. The research findings suggest that by 1990 - after three years of anti-drug television advertisements - drug use was reduced by approximately 9%. Additionally, the team observed that the decrease in drug consumption came at a time when anti-drug ads had increasing levels of national media exposure and public visibility. During this timeframe, pro bono media support for anti-drug advertising increased from a low of $115 million in 1987 to a high of $365 million in 1991."
Unfortunately, the 90s didn't do such a good job keeping people off drugs after the 80s ushered in some sober individuals. In the early 1990s, research shows that the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign launched in order encourage young people to stay away from drugs "is unlikely to have had favorable effects on youths."What's even better: skeptics claim the anti-drug ads, a $1 billion effort, may have had a reverse effect and actually caused more teenagers to use drugs. Robert Hornik, professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, researched the campaign in 2004 and concluded the ads “either had no effects on kids or possibly had a boomerang effect.”
The failed campaign tried to compare users to non-users, suggesting that your friends that used sucked and you were right to not use; however non-users were more concerned that their peers were doing something they weren't. Another study on the same topic mentions that "in turn, those who came to believe that their peers were using marijuana were more likely to initiate use themselves."
It is what you'd expect, though, when running unlikely scenarios of minors facing intense situations from bullies in high-tops. There's more wrong in the video below than just cartoon turtles having a dialog with a kindergarten class, who would otherwise have no idea that drug use should be one of their concerns:
2000s: We'll Get it Right Next Time
If comparing them won't work, fear will. The Montana Meth project has been running a campaign for years linking meth to horrid scenarios. The ads are counting on viewer's shock-value and are causing quite the controversy.
The above ad, featuring a female meth user unaware of her decisions, in an implied sex position with a man who is almost completely out of frame. The billboard reads "15 bucks for sex isn't normal. But on meth it is."
In response from parents organizations, the Montana Meth Project has agreed to pull this particular billboard, but still has several others reliant on the same shock value.
Messages like these are awfully strong for an outdoor campaign, especially in a rural area. According to a local newspaper, however, some Montanans want the ads to continue, crude content and all. One comment on the story: "Meth is a terrible thing. Perhaps these parents can figure an appropriate explanation to their children. Some people need to be shocked."
Shocked seems to be the trends of this decade, even internationally. With an emerging global economy, we're exposed to all sorts of drugs drugs in all new ways. Estadao.com.br, a Brazilian publication, had this finding:
"Drug (cocaine) had been diagnosed in 80% of the nations of the world, indicating that the globalization of trade has become a problem. For years, consumers around the world [snort] 600 tons of cocaine, with a turnover of approximately R $ 80 billion. For Brazil, moving 80 tons a year, almost all produced in neighboring countries like Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. The drug trafficking brings in about $ 5 billion in Brazil."
Anti-Drug supporters are fighting back, with similar campaigns like the Montana Meth Project - shocking, graphic and vivid. Here's a translated version of a commercial that ran in New Zealand:
Turning the Light on Crack Heads
In order to be effective, drug advertising can't be related to people you really know. Telling teenagers that all their stupid friends are doing drugs only makes them want to shoot up. But research shows people don't actually want to be doped up and raped in a ditch. Why it took 4 decades for us to figure that out is beyond this blog.
With wider varieties of drugs, easier ways to get them, and far better trips than our ancestors could have dreamed of, anti-drug supporters are finding more clever ways to engage their hopefuls. Their messages are getting louder, and the numbers show that they are being heard.
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