Ever since the first President Bush held up a bag of crack at a 1989 press conference, the federal government has spent many millions of dollars on anti-drug advertising campaigns targeted at teenagers. All those fried-egg spots (“This is your brain on drugs”) have been the butt of many a teenage joke, and as it turned out, they were highly effective at actually encouraging kids to smoke pot.
Some new anti-drug ads now airing in Montana, however, might actually be working, perhaps because they weren’t made by dorks in Washington. The new campaign was produced by the Montana Meth Project, a private group founded by a local rancher. The ads are way edgier than anything the drug czar’s office ever came up with, including one featuring a near-naked girl in a hotel room after her boyfriend pimps her for drug money and another of some kids dumping an unconscious girl on a hospital driveway before speeding away.
A new study suggests that Montana’s ads have reduced teen meth use in the state by 45 percent, a figure compelling enough for the White House to get on the bandwagon and broadcast Montana’s graphic ads in other states.
