This anti-marijuana ad is making the rounds for Thanksgiving again this year, and has been fact-checked as not being an actual ad from the Ad Council. Younger generations look at this and think, “this is so absurd that it’s obviously fake,” but little do they know that the anti-drug campaigns of the ’80s were just that — absurd. From, Pee Wee Herman talking to kids about crack to McGruff the Crime Dog singing that users are losers, it was a wild time to be a kid. Looking for a refresher? Here’s a good read on the evolution of ant-drug campaigns over the years:
For decades, we’ve been trying to convince teens that drugs are dangerous, definitely not fun and totally deadly. Beginning in the 1980s, adults — namely a combination of government, non-profits, and ad companies — weaponized something they knew teens already loved: TV. The simple idea was to use TV advertising to cement messages in teens’ minds that would discourage drug use, encourage them to stay substance-free and draw a line in the sand between users and non-users… read more >
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