“Reefer Madness” might be the first American anti-drug commercial. The 1936 movie was meant to warn young people about “a violent narcotic, an unspeakable scourge, The Real Public Enemy Number One!” Whether it ever dissuaded a druggie, it did succeed in provoking generations of pot smokers to hilarity. Today the challenge for parents, teachers, and government officials remains finding effective ways to get across a simple message: “drugs – bad.”
Just last week at the Super Bowl, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy paid millions on a new strategy: linking the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. From “Just say no” through “I learned it from you, Dad” and “I helped kidnap people’s dads,” what works, what doesn’t?
Guests:
Marcia Rosenbaum, Director of the San Francisco office of the Drug Policy Alliance