cannabisnews.com: White House Drug Czar Unveils New Ad Campaign White House Drug Czar Unveils New Ad Campaign Posted by CN Staff on January 29, 2004 at 12:18:38 PT By Karen Mattews, Associated Press Writer Source: Associated Press New York -- White House drug czar John Walters unveiled a new ad campaign Wednesday intended to coax parents and friends to confront drug-using teenagers. "Young people have the power to help steer their friends who have veered into the dangerous world of drug use back onto a safer path," said Walters, who heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy. In one TV ad, which will debut during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl on Sunday, a teenage girl's descent into drugs rewinds to the moment when her mother could have talked to her about it. In another, parents slam the door in each other's faces to steel themselves against their son's reaction when they confront him about drugs. Walters was joined by Roy Bostock, chairman of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, and other officials at a screening of five 30-second ads at the Museum of Television and Radio in midtown. Bostock said that since it is difficult to address drug-using teens directly, the ads attempt "essentially to go around them _ to speak instead to those who love and care about these kids the most, their parents and their friends." "Debuting these ads on Super Bowl Sunday provides us with a unique opportunity to reach millions of parents and teens simultaneously," he said. The ads were created pro bono by Foote Cone & Belding and Ogilvy and Mather. Under a deal worked out in 1997, television networks provide ad time at a 50 percent discount. Walters' office has been under pressure to prove that its ads work. A 2002 study found that teens exposed to federal anti-drug ads were no less likely to use drugs, and some young girls said they were even more likely to give drugs a try. Bostock, a veteran advertising executive, said the new ads have been submitted to "the most rigorous testing I have ever seen." Source: Associated Press Author: Karen Mattews, Associated Press WriterPublished: January 29, 2004Copyright: 2004 The Associated Press Related Articles:Drug Wars' Super Sunday http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18248.shtmlONDCP Links Drugs, Drinking in New Ads http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18222.shtmlStudy Faults White House Anti-Drug Adshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18172.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #11 posted by kaptinemo on January 30, 2004 at 06:43:31 PT: I second rchandars's suggestion Something along the lines of MoveOn.org's "Bush in 30 Seconds" ads. Only not to low-impact as the one they chose to try to air and CBS didn't have to cojones to (despite it's being lightweight) for fear of ticking off the Bushites... [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by rchandar on January 29, 2004 at 19:53:34 PT: john walters' ads yes--that's what i'm thinking, too. it's time we ran our own ads and expose how horrible the Drug War is, how unneccessary and how a distorted aping of morality leads to persecution and the ruination of families, not the drugs themselves. they need to be sophisticated, cinema-like ads--just like theirs. they need to provoke outrage against the Drug War--just like their ads try to provoke outrage against people using drugs. (It's never been done before, this strategy). But it's time.--rchandar [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by ron on January 29, 2004 at 17:04:56 PT I like the links that Jose publishes I've been meaning to thank him for a while now, especially for that site with the school swat video and all the articles. I like the links that people put in here. I only wish I could do it so well. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Virgil on January 29, 2004 at 17:04:34 PT Yippie -Sniffing glue Sniffing glue is really suicide. People can die of that and the police sit by and let them commit what is suicide. In Brazil there is a huge population of young abandoned by their parents. The police shoot them like rats. Sniffing glue kills a lot of them as they don't see how to make it anyway. [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by global_warming on January 29, 2004 at 15:58:54 PT Pity The Fools Hi AllPlease Jose, don't change, be the ever sharp mind, I hope that you are lawyer, for if not, you missed your chance..Capt..you have my vote for president or leader in this forgotten place america..I wonder about John Walters, he seems to me that he might be a decent human being, and has the best interests for all of us, in his limited position, he can have only limited choices, but beware John, for your comfortable life, may hold deeper payments, that enjoin your soul and its place in this universe.John, if you want to help, understand, that the blood of the souls that you are imprisoning, will sing to your soul, in an everlasting nightmare, the profiteers that pay you, have yet deeper tomes to sing,..John, in name of the unknown martyrs, free yourself, while you have this chance, break the strokes of violence, arise and be known, for your prayers, mingled with ours, can form a cadence, that can stand for justice,.. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by yippierevolutionary on January 29, 2004 at 14:08:04 PT Jose Huffing is Evil That is one anti-drug public service ad that should be funded, of course all the other ones would have to be scrapped so the anti huffing ads would have any credibility.I think most people that huff do so only because they lack the money or access to better drugs. Which is why I propose that any one caught huffing should be given a lifetime supply of whatever other drug they want even heroin because it would be so much better for themselves and society.That is how bad huffing is. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on January 29, 2004 at 13:57:43 PT: I just can't help thinking: All that money wasted Hundreds and hundreds of Billions....It's staggering. Literally. When you realize what *could* have been done with the money being flushed down the toilet these past 23 years, it's literally mind-blowing. The brain reaches a point of totally incredulous saturation and refuses to register such amounts. Schools, roads, hospitals, revamping our infastructure, single payer health care, you name it. We could have had it. Instead, we engage in Constitutionally illegal wars, slaughtering innocents who could have been friends, our infrastructure crumbles, our prisons fill to bursting, unemployment rising, people going hungry or suffer for lack of health care, families ripped apart legally; I could go on and on...But there's an even greater cost involved, and it has to do with our national psyche. Because children are murdered by police in "Ooops!-wrong-house" drug raids here in America and are killed by CIA sponsored mercenaries over the Andes and their deaths shrugged off by reptilian Drugwar supporting pols as 'collateral damage' in this insane War. And the nation trundles merrily along as if nothing has happened.The bullets used to kill those children as a 'policy decision' came from our wallets. Every single taxpaying American has been made accessories to 'murder most foul'. Even though none of us would have pulled the trigger, the sociopaths running this country did it for us...on our dime and on our time.In some (hopefully not too distant) future time, when the DrugWar has finally been spent dry and there's no more support for it save from the knuckledragging troglodytes-in-suits, a Reconciliation committee will HAVE to be formed as was in the post-Apartheid South Africa, to prevent the inevitable backlash against so much violence and hatred that has been perpetrated against illicit drug users. There are tens of millions of scores to settle, and this nation would not survive the civil war that would engulf it if no acknowledgement is made of it's innate injustice.I you want a peek at what such an horrifying glimpse of a possible future America would look like, I strongly urge you to read a book by one Thomas Chittum, entitled "Civil War Two: the Coming Breakup of America". (Don't go to a library; it might be one of those 'watched' books that draw official attention to the borrower. It's that incendiary.) Although Chittum is an obvious racist, and I certainly do NOT endorse his personal views, his *historical* ones are proving scarily prescient with regards to many social trends (he predicted the present Busch Regime's proposed 'amnesty' program for illegal aliens 9 years ago). And the DrugWar has permitted many police forces to behave exactly as he predicted they would: like an invading army in an occupied country. One might be forgiven for thinking the civil war has actually been going on for some time, with illicit drug consumers being used for warming-up target practice for The Big Show.This nation cannot continue to afford this DrugWar with it's diviseness any longer, lest we truly become several nations at each other's throats. Either a halt is called, or we fall over the precipice of fascism and the sure-as-death-and-taxes backlash against it.All that money; all those lives. All that pain and suffering. For what? For what? [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by john wayne on January 29, 2004 at 13:39:19 PT we're confronting YOU John Waters Prohibition is when a government goes completely off the rails. When officials in that government are so over-full of their own perceived power that they think that they can stand in the way of thousands of years of herbal knowledge and healthful use and dictate to citizens which plants they may or may not ingest.John Waters, isn't it about time you took a look at your own abusive and distorted behavior against the use of a simple, helpful herb and admit that you have a problem? [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by FoM on January 29, 2004 at 13:14:49 PT Jose I don't have a problem with Maps news being posted but why do you want to post so many links all the time? I don't understand. We have a banner that takes a person right to Maps page. If people want to read their news it is very easy to do. Please stop. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by jose melendez on January 29, 2004 at 13:06:22 PT Just out hypocrisy. How about this ad John Walters?kids talking to each other about the results of marijuana prohibition . . . at a funeral where their best friend was huffing gold paint!cut to Budweiser's True commercial.How to expose a hypocrite Tip # 2387:http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n185/a09.html?397 [ Post Comment ] Post Comment