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White House To End Drugs & Terror Ads

craig420

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Aug 7, 2002
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WASHINGTON -- The White House anti-drug office will end its controversial drugs-and-terror advertising campaign and, in a reversal, shift more of its $150 million budget toward children's media as it fights for Congress to extend the program another five years.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy will also cease a polarizing $8 million annual study that found the ads aimed at youth were not working and that pitted the drug office against the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Youth-oriented media

Now, the office will direct 60% of its buys toward youth-oriented media -- the same percentage it had previously directed at adults -- and will focus on halting drug use among children already using rather than aim to deter youth from starting drugs. The drugs-and-terror ads will end in May.

The drugs-and-terror campaign first broke five months after the Sept. 11 attacks, with two Super Bowl ads that cost the drug office more than $3 million to run. The spots centered on the idea that people who purchase drugs help fund terrorism. One ad showed a shopping list that includes an AK-47 rifle. "Where do terrorists get their money?" said the voice-over. "If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you." Later ads replaced "terrorism" with "terror," suggesting drug buys supported drug-cartel attacks on innocent civilians.

Ogilvy & Mather controversy

The ads were controversial not only because of their message, but because of the way they were produced. While almost all White House Office of National Drug Control Policy creative comes from the Partnership, the terrorism ads were produced outside the Partnership by the drug office's agency, WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather.

The Partnership said the ads were off-strategy and refused to do any of the spots. Partnership Vice Chairman Allen Rosenshine, chairman-CEO of Omnicom Group's BBDO Worldwide, ripped the campaign in a congressional hearing.

Spending cuts

The battle, coming to a drug office already wounded by complaints over Ogilvy's initial stewardship of the account, bolstered congressional critics who tried to cut spending dramatically. They eventually reduced it by about $25 million to about $150 million.

Legislation to continue the program is expected to soon be proposed by a bipartisan group of senators. Reps. Mark Souder, R-Ind., chairman of the Government Reform panel, and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said last week that it would likely include language limiting the drug office's ability to go outside the Partnership for creative and also language that could require the drug office to rebid the contract won last year by Ogilvy.

http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=37504

WHITE HOUSE TO END DRUGS & TERROR ADS
Also Stops Study That Found Campaign Wasn't Working

April 01, 2003
QwikFIND ID: AAO56D

By Ira Teinowitz
 
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You must read the drudge report. You beat me to it as I was going to post this here!!

Well, it is good to see those conservative fucks get put it in their places a bit. Those commercials were the epitome of government trying to sway public opinion.
 
Someone came to their senses? Could it be?

Pairing up drugs and terrorism was stupid, those fucking shysters. No one bought it anyway.

This story should go on the front page of bl.
 
Aside from the fact that these ads are a bunch of crap, the amount of money i spend on drugs in a year is about enough to buy three guns (not including the ammo). So even if my money did go to fund terrorism it's not that much.
 
focus on halting drug use among children already using rather than aim to deter youth from starting drugs.

Does anyone else think this is just a tad idealistic ?
 
When is the DEA or whoever going to learn that drug programs don't work. I never even knew what drugs were until D.A.R.E. introduced them to me. If it wasn't for D.A.R.E. I wouldn't be doing drugs today, or at least I wouldn't have started as early as I did.
 
forgive me for being cynical....BUT....

the new "focus" to get youths already addicted to drugs, off of drugs...seems to me to be another ploy to keep their asses employed. for years people have been saying "where are the results?" and now by focusing on getting kids off of drugs (READ: getting kids into rehab) it will just give more fodder to their cause. more kids in rehab means their programs are working in the goverments eyes...more kids in rehab for marijuana especially will only further "build their case" for the dangers of marijuana ("more people in rehab for pot than anything else" they'll say (READ: marijuana is a dangerous drug and causes so many problems that people are driven to fix themselves.....((REALITY: you arrest more people and tell them they can go to rehab or jail...guesss where they go?)))

sorry for being cynical but....8(
 
Good news. Although I'm not sure their new strategy is going to work too much better.

craig420 said:
WASHINGTON -- The White House anti-drug office ... as it fights for Congress to extend the program another five years.

Please, dear god, no. Write to your senators and your representatives. Tell them you do not want this program extended as it exists today. Boooo. Booooo White House anti-drug office.
 
Now, the office will direct 60% of its buys toward youth-oriented media -- the same percentage it had previously directed at adults

don't you guys also think this is going to make the ads more unbelievable. They know kids are gonna buy the bullshit ads we scoff at like say the weed one where the guys shoots his friend. I think we're going to be seeing more commercials that aren't based in reality but which younger kids are still going to buy into.
 
just to play devil's advocate a little here....
don't you guys think that it would be a good idea to scare the crap outta high school kids a little bit? i mean seriously, most of us have seen some really bad shit happen because people we know and care about have gotten too far into really hard drugs. (i'm a firm believer in moderation)
it's just my personal oppinion that a person should be as educated as possible about something that WILL alter their reality. let's face it, i have no illusions about how easy it is to get drugs. all you need is a will, and you can get them. so it's not like i think that high school kids (and younger?) can get drugs if they want to.
but i think that maybe kids shouldn't do drugs until they have the capacity to fully weigh the risks and benefits of doing drugs.
i for one would be glad if this new campaign scared younger kids from doing drugs because it may mean a cut back in those horror stories of some dumbfuck high school kid oding on something because s/he was a dumbfuck and took way more than was good for them. so if this new campaign is successful in the way i hope it will be, that would mean less fodder for the fucking man later ;)
 
nimble said:
just to play devil's advocate a little here....
don't you guys think that it would be a good idea to scare the crap outta high school kids a little bit? i mean seriously, most of us have seen some really bad shit happen because people we know and care about have gotten too far into really hard drugs. (i'm a firm believer in moderation)
it's just my personal oppinion that a person should be as educated as possible about something that WILL alter their reality. let's face it, i have no illusions about how easy it is to get drugs. all you need is a will, and you can get them. so it's not like i think that high school kids (and younger?) can get drugs if they want to.
but i think that maybe kids shouldn't do drugs until they have the capacity to fully weigh the risks and benefits of doing drugs.
i for one would be glad if this new campaign scared younger kids from doing drugs because it may mean a cut back in those horror stories of some dumbfuck high school kid oding on something because s/he was a dumbfuck and took way more than was good for them. so if this new campaign is successful in the way i hope it will be, that would mean less fodder for the fucking man later ;)



well, i think kids need to know the truth. i remmeber how pissed off i was when i found out that DARE program was a bunch of lies. i think we need to end this whole "anti-drug" bullshit and start telling everyone, including kids, the truth about all drugs(good and bad), instead of just bunching everything up into one catagory.(all drugs are like different alcohols, just to get fucked up for fun) lying to the younger people will just hurt them in the long run. i say stop wasting money on prohibition, which is obviously completely worthless, and focus on REAL drug education. just think about it. its very sad that the bluelight message boards provide much more adequate drug education than the actual "offical" drug programs.
 
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I have a hard time believing that anything will ever change until these uptight bastards making the policies are no longer the people making the fucking policies. Everyone screams "reform!!!", but you can't teach an old dog new tricks, so to speak. You have to kick the old dog out of the house and get a new fucking dog....
 
I work in advertising and know a bunch of people at O&M. Let me tell you all something about ad people...we all do some type of drug. Coke, speed, e, h...you name it. While many of are not addicts, we do tend to party real hard on the weekends or when away on shoots. I find it funny that whoever the creative team was who did these actaully presented such lame ideas. Normally, clients water down work but if you work in the business, you can kind of tell there was a good idea in many bad spots. I never once saw a good idea turned bad in these spots. Not one. Hell, they even admitted the strategy was off, yet still moved forward...typical drugged up ad peple. hehehehe.
 
well, i think kids need to know the truth....very sad that the bluelight message boards provide much more adequate drug education than the actual "offical" drug programs.

i guess you could just sit them down and tell them the flat out truth, but who decides at when kids are ready to hear about that sort of thing. in my mind middle school kids are certainly not ready to hear about the downsides of a coke binge. on top of that most high school kids aren't ready to deal with the emotional rollercoaster that comes with doing E. and yeah, DARE is a terrible program, and partly responsible for me doing drugs, but whatever. i think i said it before but i'll say it again, i'm a firm believer in being educated about the shit you do. but i think there is a point where a person is completely ready to deal with being educated about drugs, and i don't think middle school is that point.
i guess what i'm saying is that telling middle schoolers little white lies won't hurt them. they will get educated when they get older and are better equipped, socially, mentally, and emotionally to deal with the consequences of that knowledge.
 
lol yeah they will have ads where a kid smokes a joint of marijuana, falls over lifeless, and then a sentence pops up:

Wheres the love?

"Marijuana, more harmful than we all thought"

(BTW - who the fuck is WE in that sentence?)
 
Maybe their on drugs while shooting the ads...itd be funny if it were truth, at the end when its cut theyd all get up laugh hysterically and all go hit the bong...i can see it happening.
 
nimble said:
i guess you could just sit them down and tell them the flat out truth, but who decides at when kids are ready to hear about that sort of thing. in my mind middle school kids are certainly not ready to hear about the downsides of a coke binge. on top of that most high school kids aren't ready to deal with the emotional rollercoaster that comes with doing E. and yeah, DARE is a terrible program, and partly responsible for me doing drugs, but whatever. i think i said it before but i'll say it again, i'm a firm believer in being educated about the shit you do. but i think there is a point where a person is completely ready to deal with being educated about drugs, and i don't think middle school is that point.
i guess what i'm saying is that telling middle schoolers little white lies won't hurt them. they will get educated when they get older and are better equipped, socially, mentally, and emotionally to deal with the consequences of that knowledge.



maybe middle schoolers shouldnt get drug education at all; it could wait until highschool. i still dont think even naive kids would appreciate lies, even if they are "little white lies". lies are lies, and in my opinion fear tactics or any lies do nothing but harm and deceive. if you were told even the smallest lies about drugs by offical programs, and found out the truth later,(well you and me were told big lies) wouldnt it still diminish your trust in the system? it sure as fuck did me. knowing the truth on both sides is important, and it should be known that drugs arent always harmful, but if used irresponsibly, will be. if i had kids, id much rather them know the true risks and benefits so they could make their own educated decisions than be lied to and experiment without adequate knowledge. no matter what, kids are most likely going to come across drugs, and its much better to be properly educated about them.
 
no matter what, kids are most likely going to come across drugs, and its much better to be properly educated about them.

Telling kids to just say no only entices them further without telling them what they're really getting into.
 
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