Superbowl drug ads
Well, loyal readers (that's right, all three of you, I hope it's that many) I regret to inform you I missed all but the last few minutes of the Superbowl, and the last valiant stand of the Oakland Raiders to try to win being thwarted by two interceptions. That's too bad, I like Oakland, and wanted them to win. But then again, I don't care enough about football to really be that concerned. As opposed to my unending love of the Diamondbacks. I literally bleed purple. Seriously, I had my blood dyed in order to bleed purple. The doctors said it would cut fifty years off my life, but hell it's worth it. I guess, though, this is the downside of loving a baseball franchise whose team color isn't red. At least I'm not a Yankees fan. Bleeding pinstripes can't help in the whole living area.
Anyway, enough of a digression. I should get to the point.
Reading August's blog reminded me that I wanted to say something about the Superbowl anti-drug ads. The thought is disgusting enough, but apparently, as August points out:
The United States government spent two million dollars- keep in mind it spent three million dollars investigating the entire extent of the September 11th attacks- to instill fear into young girls that smoking marijuana will cause them to mistakenly have unwanted children, and not, you know, emotional fear caused by a lack of trust with parents or superiors telling them that they're evil people for doing virtually harmless drugs without supervision of legitimate dialogue about the extent of their dangers in regards to over-moderate use. That's you, and my, but probably not any of George Bush's friends because they don't have to give any more, tax dollars wasted.
You know, I don't care fiscally that my tax dollars go to stupid things. That's what they're there for, and really 2 million dollars comes out to like 2 cents per American. I mean, once the government takes it, it's their money. If you buy a CD from me, and I spend that money on some really bad chocolate, are you going to say, "man, I can't believe that MY CD dollars went to buy crappy chocolate. It's a travesty."
But the problem is, there's a limited amount of money to spend on drug prevention, and the waiting lists for rehab clinics are growing. With Bush's call to war cutting funding everywhere else, there is a limited amount of funding that Drug Agencies can have, and instead of wasting it on ads that don't work.
But why do this? Why spend so much money and man-hours on bullshit ad campaigns that are horribly transparent and are at least as likely to help encourage drug use as they are to disuade it? The answer is simple, the same reason we neglected the Kyoto treaty, threaten war with Iraq, and propose an economic "stimulus" plan where 70% of the benefits effect 5% of the population. Someone is getting rich off of this. Or, at least, slightly richer.
And all this does at the end of the day is widen the gap between rich and poor. For some examples of consequences of this sort of behavior, look at France in 1789, or Russia in 1918.
And people wonder why I think history is cyclic.
Well, loyal readers (that's right, all three of you, I hope it's that many) I regret to inform you I missed all but the last few minutes of the Superbowl, and the last valiant stand of the Oakland Raiders to try to win being thwarted by two interceptions. That's too bad, I like Oakland, and wanted them to win. But then again, I don't care enough about football to really be that concerned. As opposed to my unending love of the Diamondbacks. I literally bleed purple. Seriously, I had my blood dyed in order to bleed purple. The doctors said it would cut fifty years off my life, but hell it's worth it. I guess, though, this is the downside of loving a baseball franchise whose team color isn't red. At least I'm not a Yankees fan. Bleeding pinstripes can't help in the whole living area.
Anyway, enough of a digression. I should get to the point.
Reading August's blog reminded me that I wanted to say something about the Superbowl anti-drug ads. The thought is disgusting enough, but apparently, as August points out:
The United States government spent two million dollars- keep in mind it spent three million dollars investigating the entire extent of the September 11th attacks- to instill fear into young girls that smoking marijuana will cause them to mistakenly have unwanted children, and not, you know, emotional fear caused by a lack of trust with parents or superiors telling them that they're evil people for doing virtually harmless drugs without supervision of legitimate dialogue about the extent of their dangers in regards to over-moderate use. That's you, and my, but probably not any of George Bush's friends because they don't have to give any more, tax dollars wasted.
You know, I don't care fiscally that my tax dollars go to stupid things. That's what they're there for, and really 2 million dollars comes out to like 2 cents per American. I mean, once the government takes it, it's their money. If you buy a CD from me, and I spend that money on some really bad chocolate, are you going to say, "man, I can't believe that MY CD dollars went to buy crappy chocolate. It's a travesty."
But the problem is, there's a limited amount of money to spend on drug prevention, and the waiting lists for rehab clinics are growing. With Bush's call to war cutting funding everywhere else, there is a limited amount of funding that Drug Agencies can have, and instead of wasting it on ads that don't work.
But why do this? Why spend so much money and man-hours on bullshit ad campaigns that are horribly transparent and are at least as likely to help encourage drug use as they are to disuade it? The answer is simple, the same reason we neglected the Kyoto treaty, threaten war with Iraq, and propose an economic "stimulus" plan where 70% of the benefits effect 5% of the population. Someone is getting rich off of this. Or, at least, slightly richer.
And all this does at the end of the day is widen the gap between rich and poor. For some examples of consequences of this sort of behavior, look at France in 1789, or Russia in 1918.
And people wonder why I think history is cyclic.
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