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  • AADD Moderators: swilow | Vagabond696

The new drug ads

silvia saint said:
they are nothing but diluted modernized versions of the reefer madness type propaganda of the 50's etc.
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Would someone be bored enough to post some old-skool anti-drug campaigns?

Should be good for a laugh

(i wonder if 25 years from now people will be laughing at our current anti-drug campaings?)
 
lostNfound said:
prevention - wouldnt that cut jobs & increase unemployment rates;) I'm sure campaigners wouldn't want that.
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needs to be weighed up with whats more important. life, or that?


at any rate, i dont believe its possible, but in theory..
 
These drug ads have nothing to do with stopping drug use. Due to some serious questioning of the goverment's other trusted public opinion warhorse, "The War On Terror!", they have been forced to fall back on good ol' drugs. Everyone in any position of power in Australia knows that these ads wont work, because nothing like this has ever worked before. After all, drug users, as a whole, have been societies favourate punching bag for close to 100 years now.

The more cynical among you will have noted that these ads come at a time when the government is suffering due to internal party politics and some serious questions relating to the immigration department, umongst other things.

I wouldnt be too worried, I suppose they will just forget about it in a few months like they always do.
 
yeah i think they are pertty pointless. Creating unnessary hype.
I actually know the guy in the xtc add that in the scene with the girl on the floor at the club
"I think shes had xtc"
He did the add cause one of his mates died after taking drugs. I don't know what from or which drug but.
 
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Regarding these advertisements, it's important to remember that Harm Minimisation is a 3-tiered strategy involving Supply Reduction, Demand Reduction and Harm Reduction. The first one is the domain of Customs and the Police; the second one is what these ads are attempting to achieve; the third is the mission of Bluelight and Enlighten, etc.

If anything, these ads may work in several ways - sure, some people may be scared by the ads from ever trying illegal drugs. Also, they may desensitise people to the names of the drugs, and planting the seed that they're unsafe because "you don't know what they will do to you" is sure to send some people seeking that knowledge whether they have, do, or will ever use illegal drugs.

BigTrancer :)
 
I'm a primary school P.E. teacher and the other day (before I had even seen these ads) I had a 9 yr old boy come to me privately after class and ask me if it was true that if he smoked some marijuana he would be able to get good enough to get onto the school football team. I wasn't sure exactly what he was on about but after he explained it became clear that he had misinterpretted the ad something shocking (maybe he only saw part of it or maybe he was too young and naive to that type of thing to get the message) and thought that smoking marijuana actually improved your coordination and general sporting ability. It took me the whole lunch hour to get through to him that he was mistaken because he thought that as he had seen it on T.V. it must be true and teachers were simply trying to keep him off the team by telling him otherwise.
I really think that if they are going to show these ads at particular times (apparently around 4pm) they need to understand that while some young children may already know about marijuana and be experiencing some pressure to try it etc there are also other children that have never encountered it even in social conversation and are now feeling disturbed by the fact that the T.V. is talking about something they don't know about and apparently shound (this was the view expressed by this child... he was somewhat embarrassed by the fact that he had not tried marijuana and did not know about the effects it produced. He also thought that kids that were good at sport must smoke marijuana to be so much more tallented than him).
I know that this was a simple misinterpretation by the child but in speaking with other teachers at several schools it has been discovered that many young children are making this mistake.
 
This is exacatly why I feel these ads should not be screened before ~8:30pm. That way, teenagers will still see them, but young children, for whom the concepts are largely going to be foreign, difficult and scary, will be unlikely to see them.
 
I think what those ads are trying to say is:

* It's not always a bed of roses when you take drugs socially - legal or not.
* Not everyone can handle them.
* In the wrong hands, they can be easily misused.
* It's tougher to make good calls when you're perceptions are altered.

That sort of thing.
 
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since my post was accidently deleted i will respond again...

silvia saint said:
to DQ-

i actually think it is great that your son has come to you to ask about ecstasy, it's a sure sign you're doing something right as a parent trust wise, it may be the only good thing to come out of these ads. whilst having to explain this to him at 10 might seem a tad premature, i do think it is necessary to inform at a much younger age as the facts show kids are experimenting with drugs a lot earlier in life these days.
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Thanks :) I think i'm doing a pretty good job myself just going off the person he is, the things he says and the actions he makes and have always had a strong bond with him and he knows he can trust me. I will always tell him my opinion but always reinforce that it's just my opinion and not fact and there are alot of people in the world that think differently and he has to reasearch and make his own decision (which he does alot) Most times he agrees with me but sometimes he believes something else.

Right on for a 10 year old that is a free thinker =D

Kids are experimenting with drugs at an earlier age and i am worried (especially the area that i live in - NOT my lifestyle) will affect him but he's pretty well with it and is not into peer pressure. He thinks it's stupid to like something just because someone else does. Pretty simple concept but most adults don't understand this let alone chilkdren.

unlike the older ads (the new ones still do to an extent) which suggested you use their free, propaganda, negative based fact pamphlet, you can now give him the whole story. i think if i ever find myself in your situation i would, after basically giving him both sides of the story, place the emphasis on that if he is ever wanting to try drugs, wait until he is older (18+), justifying this by explaining that his body and mind is going to undergo much maturing during this period and being a teen is a tough enough time without adding drugs to the mix, and that an older mind and body is much better in dealing with any negative psychological side effects of drugs, illegal or legal. i think this approach would work much better for all parents giving "the talk" in regards to curbing drug use early in life. sorry if i'm reiterating what others have said.
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I always tell him all the facts and have done already from a partucular drug that he asked about not that long ago.

Again though - i don't think a ten year old should know about xtc. As i said three years of doofing and he never asked me but he waches an ad on tv and the government has forced me to explain. :X
 
Yes it's demand reduction but more of the same kind of stuff we've been having for years. I'd also like to make the point that the kind of people who would be scared off taking drugs by these ads aren't likely to try them anyway because it's illegal and the proportion of people who would be prepared to commit a serious crime yet decide not to because they won't know what it would do to them would be small indeed. These kinds of ads have had success against tabacco, and that's why they're used against illicit drugs, but tobacco is a legal drug- i think they're missing the point. These kinds of ads have had success against domestic violence (an illegal activity) but only when it's made explicitly clear that kids are getting victimised in the process. Maby it's far to a reductionist point of view, but i believe these kind of campaigns provide little bang for the buck so to speak when targetted against self-limiting illegal activities and the money could be better spent elsewhere or if it must be spent on advertising tackle the problem in a new and innovative way- maby if drugs were controlled by the state these ads would have a far more beneficial effect?
 
I just went to the gov't website for more information....

http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/campaign/info.htm#ecstasy

this is what it says about ecstasy:

Ecstasy
Product: MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine), ecstasy.

Street name: Ecstasy, E, Ex, E and C, eccy, MDMA, PMA, Adam, XTC, love drug, eggs.

Symptoms: Increased blood pressure and pulse rate, raised body temperature, sweating, overheating, jaw clenching, teeth grinding, nausea, anxiety, excitability, tremors, insomnia, dilated pupils, loss of appetite.

Potential consequences: Weight loss, chronic sleep problems, cracked teeth through grinding, high blood pressure, dehydration, anxiety, nervousness, hallucinations, decreased emotional control, lethargy, severe depression, nerve cell damage, thermal meltdown, death from heart failure


It makes it sound like no fun at all... what happened to the "symptoms" of euphoria, the loved-up-ness?
Drug harm minimisation, in my opinion, should be the focus... not this drugs are bad mmmkay approach.

It's not going to stop my recreational pursuits.


:p
 
Mmm, thermal meltdown...

Seriously, what the fuck is thermal meltdown? That ain't no medical term folks! Mmm, just a made up nasty name for hyperthermia, designed to sound really scary.

I noticed a poster ad in the loos at my local cinema about "thermal meltdown" and ecstacy - think I'll go make up some stickers with the URLs of Bluelight, Pillreports and Erowid to stick over them. :X
 
/\/\/\

Thermal meltdown definitely sounds like something that would be caused by 'red mitsubishi' ;)

I do think there is some place for the ads that are currently running... let's face it, these things do happen and we are sometimes far too complacent about it.

That said, there is a large gap in available governmental information which I believe needs to be filled with a focus on harm minimisation. Prohibition and the 'just say no' approach simply have no impact a majority of users.

I also agree with those who have said the ads shouldn't be run before 8.30pm.
 
Thermal meltdown sounds more like Chernobyl. So that means if we pop pills we'll turn into mushroom clouds or something? Hmm, the link between the illegal drug trade and the arms trade seems clearer to me now...=D

At least they're not cracking down on the classic psychedelics. %)
 
And how I know someone who knows someone who took a tab of acid and had a bad trip and got stuck in it.
 
^^ oh yeah we all know someone who knows someone like that hey? (and they are usually against lsd - funny that)
 
" You Dont Know What It Will Do To You"

^ dosent that give incentive to find out ?

And In a teenagers mind isn't the easyest way to find out someting.. try it ?

I live By these sayings

" Know Your Mind, Know Your Body, Know Your Source"

" Go Hard or Go Home" :p
 
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