When I was growing up there were these laughably
ineffective TV messages aimed at kids to ward them away from drugs. They usually
featured some variation on a good clean looking kid being approached out of the
shadows by some shady older kid offering drugs and calling him a chicken for
refusing. We always laughed at the absurdity of these ads because they looked
nothing like anything we ever experienced. Every teenager knows that this is
simply not how kids encounter drugs for the first time, or any time for that
matter. The target message – “Just Say No” to drugs – was effectively lost for
a complete failure to understand the issue.
