"Smoking weed made me try to outrun Tic Tic, the lumberyard dog"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Bad Ads: The Anti-Anti-Drug
READ MORE: advertising, drugs, nostalgia

The complete script of a new Partnership for a Drug-Free America ad we saw for the first time during The Simpsons last night:

Yesterday, my friends told me to smoke some weed. And I did.

Then today, they said I should try to outrun Tic Tic, the lumberyard dog. And I don’t think I can make it.

I’m an idiot. I’m doing stupid stuff. And that ain’t me.

When we saw that, we were indignant for a second. These people once created icons, like “This is your brain on drugs” and “I learned it from watching you, dad.” Now they’re doing “And if your friends jumped off the George Washington Bridge?” (Also, the kid gets away from the dog, which don’t think is really the point they’re going for.) It’s sad, and ridiculous, and we were almost going to call someone or write something or, well, do, you know, something. Then we remembered we were far too baked to care, and so we ate some more ice cream instead.

Any questions?

http://www.gawker.com/news/drugs/bad-ads-the-antiantidrug-155837.php

[Benfea]

1. Ads of that sort are always idiotic. Sending in letters won't change that.

What's really sad is that people who make ads like this never stop and consider how counterproductive such ridiculous exaggerations are. As soon as the kids figure out that smoking pot doesn't make your head explode, then they question everything authority figures told them about drugs (or to be more accurate, assume everything they were told is wrong).

If these morans were really serious about reducing drug use, they would stick to the truth, but it's obvious that's not the case and never was (remember "Refer Madness"?).

[Crazy Dave]

2. I know for a fact!

That smoking weed does not make you that energetic, except for raiding the fridge maybe.

[underpants]

6. Actually

I know someone who, when I knew this person, would not play b-ball with out it and this was HOURS in the heat and humidity.

I have known several people that get very pumped up and made it part of their preperation routine.

Different strokes I guess

[Crazy Dave]

11. The last time I smoked any...

back in 84 - 85 I slept for four hours :boring:
Believe it or not, I have a very noticeable marijuana leaf tattoo on my forearm that hasn't affected me one bit in my professional career. It's about 25 years old and the green has not faded that much. People who know what it is...know what it is.

[LostinVA]

3. The first time I saw that stupid ad, I said that

Getting stoned doesn't make you "trip"... and wtf kind of stoner would be out RUNNING? And wtf kind of stoners would be DARING him. You'd be ordering more pizza and listening to "Dust in the Wind" 500 times ina row or something.

All of those ads are just propaganda. Go after crystal meth, man, so I can get my generic Sudafed off the SHELVES again.

[Crazy Dave]

5. I almost watched "Reefer Madness" last weekend

Remember that one?

[LostinVA]

7. I own it!

The first time I saw it was during college... and we were stoned while we watched it. Insane. People who made that movie sure as hell had never gotten stoned....

[Crazy Dave]

8. I don't own it but saw it back in the days...

...where you had to go see it at the "midnight movies". We'd get stoned then go to see it.
I believe it was originally made as a government propaganda anti-drug movie and one I need to find for my home collection if it's on DVD.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

14. You can get it on DVD.

I picked it up at FYE for $5.

[BikeWriter]

10. If I recall, "reefer" will make you do all sorts of deviant shit.

[Initech]

4. Why cant we have a positive drug commercial on TV?

Quoting Bill Hicks - "Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed into a slow, moving vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we're the imagination of ourselves!"

[sleipnir]

9. Tic Tic? Who is the fucking idiot who came up with that name?

I want to meet the Madison Ave. Ad Executive who thought that stupid gem up. It makes no sense. Who in the hell names their dog Tic Tic? Is it like TicTac? Or Tick Tock? I would buy either one of those, but Tic Tic is just plain stupid.

Maybe the ads are a subversively stupid...

[bigtree]

12. my wife and her friends used to get high and ride the junkyard pig

that's right, the junkyard pig.

btw, it looked like normal kid fun braving the junkyard dog. The only thing worse than that would be never experiencing anything like it at all

[NMMNG]

13. Those ads are so ridiculous

The dipstick kid didn't succumb to the dare to outrun Tic Tic because of pot, he succumbed because he's a lemming. Teach kids to stand up for themselves (an important part of self-esteem) and they won't do stupid crap like this. And, if they really don't want to do drugs, they won't.


Pot isn't the menace these ads want people to believe, and many kids are savvy enough to realize this. Therefore the ads backfire. The kids then think that since the ads lie about pot, they must be lying about other drugs. If the powers that be really want to do some good they'd give up the war on pot and concentrate on drugs that actually do harm, like meth, cocaine, heroin and the like. Instead they focus almost exclusively on pot. Stupid mistake.

[Oeditpus Rex]

17. In their '60s, Joe Friday thinking

they consider reefer a "gateway drug."

The kids already smoking dope will just laugh at these ads, and not because the kids are stoned — because the ads are bullshit and stupid. The kids who aren't smoking likely wouldn't be anyway. So all that's left is they're going after the third-graders, who haven't yet experienced the kind of peer pressure or adventurousness that makes them want to smoke. So it's all a lost cause.

[NMMNG]

18. "Gateway drug" my backside

I've done pot but wouldn't consider doing any of the harder drugs because I know better. Why don't they consider alcohol and tobacco "gateway drugs"? They are both mind-altering, addictive substances with no therapeutic purposes. (Pot, on the other hand, is not addictive and has medicinal purposes.)

They're just fools grasping at straws for ways to scare people away from something that isn't scary, which is why their ploys don't work.

[Oeditpus Rex]

19. They haven't really gotten very far beyond

the '30s "Reefer Madness" mentality. The only real difference is they no longer try to tell us cannabis will make you incurably insane (or at least play the piano really fast). Maybe they think their "lazy, aimless loser" line has the same punch.

[NMMNG]

20. What's with the syringes?

Who shoots pot?

And I love the monster hand with the claws. So very.

As to the "threats" of weird orgies, wild parties and unleashed passions, that sounds more like they're begging people to try it than scaring them away.

[Oeditpus Rex]

21. I guess the syringes

are meant to imply that where there's smoke, there's heroin. Funny part about that is, all the '30s drug propaganda films I've seen dealt with only one drug — usually marihuana, but I also have this one:

[NMMNG]

22. If I were more artistic and had the software

I'd love to come up with some similar "ads" portraying fundie religion for what it is. It would be a hoot to give the alarmists a taste of their own medicine. :rofl:

[Oeditpus Rex]

23. Sounds like a job

for Swamp Rat. :thumbsup:

[NMMNG]

24. No doubt he could pull it off

And with flair.

[Oeditpus Rex]

25. I'd like to take a shot at it

But "layers" is one aspect of Photoshop that befuddles me. :shrug:

[Omphaloskepsis]

15. This one is my favorite..

http://campaigns.drugfreeamerica.org/Campaign_Viewer.asp?type=viewer&drug=12&campaign=1&spot=377&player=default

Description:
Two teen high on marijuana sit in their father's den and play with a gun -- which accidentally goes off. “Marijuana: Harmless?”


Fantastic.. Maybe the gun on dad's desk is the problem..

[Hardrada]

16. Repent, Harlequin! said the Tic Tic Man!

(Ticktock Man actually) but I couldn't resist.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

26. "Tic Tic"?

Any relation to Ubu?

("Sit, Ubu, sit. Good dog!"
"ARF!")

[Starbucks Anarchist]

27. "Tic Tic"?

Any relation to Ubu?

("Sit, Ubu, sit. Good dog!"
"ARF!")