The Flip Flop War on Drugs

You flip through the TV channels at any given time, and what do you see? A little girl drowns because her brother is too busy getting high to remember to watch her. A teenage boy cries over the grave of the younger brother he killed because he was too stoned to stop the car. Another young boy sits in the dark, waiting for you to pick him up, but you forgot you had a little brother, because you’re a stoner. While these commercials intent to strike fear into the hearts of the impressionable youths that may be thinking of trying marijuana for the first time, studies show these commercials may be having the opposite effect. S. Shyam Sundar of Penn State University, and Carson Wagner of the University of Colorado, authors of a study relating commercials to teenage drug use, found that students who were exposed to anti-drug Public Service Announcements wanted more “experimental knowledge” about drugs, rather than knowledge about “drug related facts.” The study also found that such commercials, specifically anti-pot ones, give teens the impression that “everyone is doing it,” therefore decreasing the danger. Could it be, that children are simply smarter than they used to be? Some researchers say that the anti-drug commercials today are too unrealistic. Recall the ecstasy commercial where parents reminisce about their teenage daughter, and a police officer reads her autopsy. Perfectly healthy brain and heart, he says. “The only drug in her system at the time of death is ecstasy.” The second one seems much more realistic. Part of the reason kids could be trying drugs at a younger age is due to the mixed messages the media gives about drug use. Illicit drugs are bad, and you should never do them. Prescription drugs are fine, take them when the doctor tells you, and don’t question. In a society where doctors are prescribing medication for things like Attention Deficit Disorder at a higher rate, the message to not take drugs may be getting lost. The same thing happens with tobacco and alcohol. Billboards are full of beautiful people having a good time, smoking and drinking. Children are told not to do these things. So basically, drugs, tobacco, and alcohol are terrible…unless your old enough to have them legally. Then they are OK. There are even discrepancies among specific drugs. Weed is bad, unless you live in almost any other country except America, or you have bad pain, where marijuana has been scientifically proven beneficial. Today, many top athletes praise steroids as helping them get where they are today. This adds another complex. Drugs are OK if they make you look good. You can get money and models if you look and perform well. Even medications to improve sexual libido show children that its OK to take pills in order to improve parts of your life you aren’t happy with. Meredith Maran, author of “Dirty: A Search For Answers Inside Americas Teenage Drug Epidemic,” classifies teenagers into two types of drug users, those who use to have fun, and those who abuse because they cant see a reason not to. She believes that kids who try drugs for fun often go on to lead healthy, non drug-abusing lives. Those from unstable backgrounds abuse drugs to harm themselves. They don’t believe they have a future, so they have no reason to stop. Perhaps this is another reason that children are taking drugs younger. All types of teenagers are thrown into two groups. How can every teen fit into one of two classes? Commercials warn parents to look for the classic signs: moodiness, failing grades, increased or decreased appetite, and rebellion. If none of these things are happening, then your kid must be OK, right? Trying drugs once, twice, or even every weekend may not affect grades. By the time irritability and letters from school arrive, the child in question already has a serious problem. Most assume that drug users live in low-income neighborhoods. Suburban kids have other things to do, they are too smart to experiment with drugs. From what I recall of high school, the rich kids were the only ones that could afford to use strong drugs on a regular basis. Most often, their parents gone on the weekends, so parties and frequent school-skipping were just as likely to happen as among high-income students as lower-income ones. Many commercials warn that marijuana is “the gateway drug.” PSA’s imply that smoking once leads to automatic heroine addiction. Most kids are aware that this is untrue. Does trying a cigarette lead to dying from lung cancer? Does a glass of club soda lead to a life long caffeine addiction? One thing the Libertarian Party would like to know is why taxpayers are paying $195 million each year to “tantalize” young teenagers about drugs (www.lp.org). They even go so far as to imply that the government is using tax-payers money to push drugs. national party director, Steve Dasbach, says, “if a private anti-drug organization was running these ads, you could threaten to withhold your contributions. With the government, you don’t have that option — even if politicians use your money to glamorize drugs to teenagers.” Some believe that the government has always been pro-drug. At one time, cocaine drops were sold over the counter to ease toothaches and headaches. Cocaine also used to be a common ingredient in Coca-Cola. Could that have been the plan among cola manufacturers? Get customers addicted, then make the product illegal, causing customers to buy the drug overseas. While there is obviously no proof on this train of thinking, it is something that should be considered. There is no denying that drug trade creates major cash flow throughout the world. This article isn’t encouraging everyone to try any drug they haven’t yet, and it isn’t denying the dangers of drug use. Perhaps what society needs is an evaluation of our priorities? Should we be spending millions of dollars a year trying to get kids not to smoke weed, when prescription drugs, coke, crack, oxycontin, and speed are even more available than ever?