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Columnist Sally Kalson: Refried eggs don't fool teens
Wednesday, July 15, 1998 By Sally Kalson, Post-Gazette Columnist
Don't smoke. Don't drink. Don't do drugs. They're bad for you. Yessiree, this is your brain; this is your brain on drugs. Any questions?
Well, yes, as a matter of fact. If these messages haven't had the desired effect in the past 20 years, what makes anyone think that making the same warnings bigger, louder and more expensive is going to do any better?
The government's newly unveiled $2-billion media campaign against drug use will get your attention all right, what with that young woman smashing her kitchen to smithereens.
But this whole media blitz strikes me as a bit like running a national inoculation campaign with a placebo. And isn't it just like Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich to release their mutual death grip just long enough to join hands in a huge, feel-good shell game that's likely to be largely ineffectual, if not counter-productive? Especially when so many medical experts would kill to get some of that money for treatment programs that have to turn people away?
It's doubly ironic, coming from a bunch of 50ish guys whose own generation laid around college dorms getting stoned and laughing hysterically at "Reefer Madness," the classic government propaganda film depicting wild-eyed marijuana smokers. Yeah, that worked REAL well.
Good grief, hasn't anyone in Washington read "Thank You for Smoking," Christopher Buckley's satire on the tobacco, firearms and liquor lobbies? The novel features a tobacco lobbyist who dreams up the perfect public service campaign: ads aimed at teen-agers that state: "Your parents don't want you to smoke."
This, he knew, would have precisely the opposite effect. So many teens are so susceptible to the siren call of independence, a campaign like this could push them right into the arms of the evil leaf.
Today's young adults have grown up on anti-substance messages. If the warnings worked as well as intended, they'd be a lot more clean and sober than they are today, and Happy Valley University would not be having alcohol-fueled riots over such pressing social issues as the closing time of the local bars.
I'm not saying the anti-ads are totally worthless. Clearly, the best time to combat addiction is before it starts. And if my own 7-year-old is any gauge, the elementary school set is getting the message loud and clear.
But something happens between grade school and high school that that the ads have failed to note. Namely, adolescence. Young kids who can be frightened by a warning have a way of becoming 15-year-olds who think they're invulnerable. And with so many teens practicing their oppositional skills like a religion, any sentient grown-up has got to ask whether it's time to take another tack.
I say we stop positioning drugs as violent and dangerous, even though they are, and start casting them as immature and nerdy, or middle-aged and square. Drugs don't turn you into an outlaw, which in our nihilistic culture is an attraction; they turn you into Barney, a big, clumsy oaf who's about as bad as, well, your parents.
The best minds in advertising didn't make cigarettes sexy by saying they were good for you; they did it by subliminally linking them to the good life. Likewise, no ad campaign is going to make drugs unsexy by preaching that they're bad for you. They must be linked to something no teen wants to be.
This is your brain (show egg). This is your brain on drugs (show Clinton and Gingrich grinning stupidly).
Any questions?
Sally Kalson's e-mail is: skalson@post-gazette.com
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