In Montana, where the campaign is hard to miss, it's been credited with a 30 percent decline in use of the drug among teens. People are often more disturbed by the truth then a lie.
The gritty, in-your-face ads on television, radio, billboards and
newspapers have exposed Montana teenagers to the ugly truth about the
evil grip of meth addiction.
They're as subtle as a sledgehammer.
A billboard shows a grungy, dirty toilet with the words, "No one thinks
they'll lose their virginity here. Meth will change that."
One TV spot shows a young man covered with scabs harassing people in a
coin laundry and beating them up for loose change. At the end of the
ad, the teen runs up to his pre-meth self and screams, "This wasn't
supposed to be your life!"
Fueled by the deep pockets of software billionaire Thomas Siebel, the
Montana Meth Project has become a national success story with its
often-shocking content. Now, Arizona officials are close to bringing
the provocative ad campaign to the state, where meth has taken hold in
cities and suburbs, rural areas, affluent houses and lower-income
neighborhoods.
On Tuesday, county and state officials, including staff members from
the Governor's Office and the Attorney General's Office, will fly to
Helena, Mont., to watch the latest round of TV spots and meet with
Siebel. The multimillion-dollar ad campaign, "Not Even Once," has
saturated the airwaves in Montana, helping reduce meth use among teens
by as much as 30 percent.
"I just don't think we have time to waste," Arizona Attorney General
Terry Goddard said. "I don't think there is hardly a family in Arizona
that doesn't have some tragedy associated with meth. It's scary that
kids think this is a drug you can experiment with at parties and it
won't hurt you."
"We need teenagers talking to teenagers."
The goal is to have an Arizona Meth Project up and running by August,
Goddard said. A non-profit organization in Arizona would run the
project and continually raise funds. An advisory group, comprised of
elected officials, doctors, business owners, educators and tribal
officials, would be set up.
Dr. Marc Matthews, director of the trauma unit at Maricopa Medical
Center, has seen the physical, emotional and psychological devastation
of meth addiction firsthand.
"It's absolutely brutal," Matthews said. "The American people are
unwilling to recognize the horror that is happening every day here in
Arizona and across the country. The drug is almost maniacal. Once it
gets hold of you, that's it."
This campaign takes a lot of hits from ad professionals, which seems
strange to me. Toilet sex and flesh slicing are on the minimal end of
what meth can inspire.
I am sure that those who have issues with these campaigns have never
had a father/son/wife/grandmother who was a junkie... it is a different
animal when it is in your backyard and you have to live with it.
I haven't seen these ads but if they are an effective deterrent, then
more power to them and the agency that created them. The crack epidemic
of the 1980s was very real, and very obvious, to anyone who lived in a
city. But that's probably why nobody tried to say its existence was
being blown out of proportion. Meth addiction seems to be more of a
problem among poor, rural whites who are too often invisible to the
media or laughingly dismissed by the general population in "white
trash" or "trailer trash" jokes.
The gritty, in-your-face ads on television, radio, billboards and
newspapers have exposed Montana teenagers to the ugly truth about the
evil grip of meth addiction.
