[quote=walterwhite] What dopus came up w just say no.[/quote]
Nancy Reagan.
Actually, a college student from University of South Florida came up with it, I think in the late ’70s, as part of a drug prevention program competition (why pay for professionals when you can sucker students into working for free). Nancy Reagan apparently thought it quite catchy, and took it upon herself to ensure that the billboards, K-12 educational materials, and American airwaves were saturated with the slogan (apparently, the people in charge of all those media weren’t able to “Just say no” to Nancy).
Speaking of annoying ’80s simplistic antidrug slogans, anyone remember the antidrugapaloozza “Get High on Yourself” broadcast on NBC? Dreamt up by the coke-frenzied brain of legendary film producer Robert Evans as part of a community service sentence for a major cocaine bust, it features scenes of a totally stratospherically-high Evans onstage with his new BFF Nancy Reagan thanking him for his anti-drug efforts. I mean, didn’t anyone suspect that Bob might be skipping his Narcotics Anonymous meetings when his 20-second public-service announcement evolved into something akin to an Olympics opening ceremony?
[quote=walterwhite] My antidrug discussions are also kinda detailed, involving drug purity, hormonal testosterone disruption, I like this one, seems good to attack anything that attacks masculinity. Mental developmental delays…seems better than just say no which didn’t work for me. The immediate kidlike response to just say no is, uh, why?[/quote]
Ah, critical thinking on the kid’s part. I like it, scaredy.
[quote=walterwhite] I try not to oversell the downside on drugs , acknowledging supershort term potential benefits buy then come down hard on the medium longterm issues…..Hopefully like their pa they’ll get paralysis by analysis on ghe issue of ingesting illegal substances.[/quote]
You’re going about this all wrong. Trot on down to UCSD School of Medicine, and ask them for archival footage of patients who’ve been doing heroin for a year. You want film of them shooting up, which will make your kid wonder why they are going to so much trouble to get a drug that makes them immediately fall asleep, only to awaken a couple hours later in serious discomfort because they need more. If your kids respond by saying that they’ve heard that heroin gives the most awesome high ever, you can tell them the truth: Yes, for a few days, perhaps. And then you spend the rest of your life chasing the sensation of that first smack high.
Then the coup de grace: sit your kids down for about 2 or 3 hours of film showing addicts going through cold-turkey medication-free withdrawal. Make sure to get film of addicts for whom this is the 3rd or 4th detox, and inform your kids of this, so that they know that the addict was fully aware that he was going to have to go through this agony again the last time he started using. It really drives home the point of how powerless humans are over this stuff, and that you truly give up all rights to control your own body and your own free will. And that once you use, you will never again be free, even if you get clean. You’re either a prisoner of physical addiction (which is evident in the films) or you’re a prisoner of mental addiction (much more difficult to treat) because, even if you’re clean, you are still tortured by the memory of that incomparable first high. And you’re a prisoner of constant fear: that you’ll run out of drug or money, that you’ll do something criminal to get more, that you’ll hurt someone you love who’s standing between you and the drug, or, even if you’ve been clean for five years, that you’ll be unable to turn it down next time it’s available.
Obviously there are limits on age, but I wouldn’t hesitate to show this stuff to an intelligent well-adjusted 8 or 9 year-old. If your kids aren’t intelligent and well-adjusted, you need to have them watch it anyway by the age of 10. Calm, rational talks of an explanatory nature about the dangers of drug use won’t work on a kid who may have a predisposition to addiction (and, unfortunately, most parents don’t know if their kids are predisposed until AFTER they’re addicted). They do have a place at the table, but it’s like trying to discuss the role of voltage-gated sodium channels and ion selectivity in your child’s ability to text: BORRRR-ING for most kids. Children need to be scared into not using drugs by seeing very real effects and outcomes. At this age, they are still young enough to scare. After 10, they become very creative in finding ways to deny the realities to which they are being exposed, or they have helpful friends who inform them that you’re using fake materials.
And some common sense and judgement should be utilized. Obviously, I am describing very severe physical effects from the worst drugs out there: heroin, and to a somewhat lesser effect, methamphetamine, cocaine, morphine, synthetic opioids, etc. What’s more, the majority of people who use drugs do not become addicted to them. However, we really don’t want our kids using drugs because we can’t tell if they are predisposed to addiction ahead of time. Even if they are not, drug abuse is quite common in the absence of addiction, and the results can be injury or death by allergy, overdose, or substance interaction; intoxication, causing injury/death for others; or failure to seek treatment for conditions alleviated by self-medicating. The best way to do this with kids is to send a message that hits them on all sensory levels: children see/hear images of horrible physical discomfort caused by obvious drug use = in your child’s mind, for years to come, he “knows” if he tries drugs he will have no ability to stop either the physical pain that will result or to keep from using the drug again. Obviously, some of these children will succumb to peer and other pressures and use drugs anyway, but not nearly as many as would have without exposure to the realities of drugs.
