New at Reason

November 10, 2006

Jacob Sullum would be better off if he didn't have to suffer through nutty, nihilistic drug war ads.

Comments

|11.10.06 @ 3:54PM|#

You should also point out that public humiliation is not used to treat cancer, AIDS, heart disease, ect. and is standard in drug rehabs.

|11.10.06 @ 4:11PM|#

Isn't Schizophrenia a disease? Schizophrehics can be detained, treated against their will and refused licenses.

hj|11.10.06 @ 4:23PM|#

The late-great Mitch Hedberg:

"Alcoholism is a disease, but it's like the only disease that you can get yelled at for having. "Dammit, Otto, you're an alcoholic." "Dammit, Otto, you have lupus." One of those two doesn't sound right."

Alcoholism/addiction/whatever.

|11.10.06 @ 4:25PM|#

Schizphrenics maybe detained, but they don't have their car taken away and sold at auction or fund the lavish lifestyes of insurance executives for up to 10 years.

hj|11.10.06 @ 4:27PM|#

And really, given the choice, who wouldn't choose addiction over cancer?

How nice it would be if cancer could be cured simply by quiting something.

|11.10.06 @ 4:45PM|#

Ah, the joy of watching a premise pursued all the way to its logical conclusion...

Bravo, Jacob!

|11.10.06 @ 4:56PM|#

The first step is to admit to yourself and to another person that you are a lupusholic and that you are powerless over lupus.

Yup. You could go through the entire twelve steps that way and you'd still have lupus just as bad as ever.

|11.10.06 @ 5:05PM|#

Drug "addiction" is a "disease" huh? That sounds familar. I guess the courts should be sentencing schizophrenics, along with cancer and heart disease patients to 12-step programs that teach them that they are powerless against their respective disease and need turn their lives over to "God" to restore them to health?

|11.10.06 @ 5:19PM|#

I disagree. We're much better off with this ad. Besides Congress, where else can we see naked, sullen old men, and who wants to go to Congress to their jollies?

|11.10.06 @ 5:43PM|#

Mitch Hedberg is dead?

hj|11.10.06 @ 6:04PM|#

Unfortunately. Heroin overdose, ironically enough.

I propose ads for Government addiction.

|11.10.06 @ 6:46PM|#

Speaking as someone who got to see his mother die of cancer last month, I would feel much better off if someone shoved those ads up the Partnerhip for a Drug Free America's asses.

|11.10.06 @ 9:00PM|#

Isn't heart disease and brain tumors reasons for not getting a pilot's license? Something about the government being afraid you might die in midflight or something. . .

Lazlo|11.10.06 @ 9:57PM|#

Schizphrenics maybe detained, but they don't have their car taken away and sold at auction or fund the lavish lifestyes of insurance executives for up to 10 years.

They also can't be detained unless they're held to be an imminent danger to themselves or others. And if the folks I see every day on the way to and from work in San Francisco don't meet that standard, there are damned few drug users who do.

|11.11.06 @ 9:37AM|#

You know, I have an illness. And when I'm sitting at home reading Hit&Run I often think to myself "It would be better if I were a drug addict"- then people would be more understanding.

|11.11.06 @ 10:21AM|#

"After all, police do not arrest people for having brain tumors, cancer, AIDS, or heart disease."

To be fair, police do not arrest people for having a narcotic addiction either. People are arrested for possession of a controlled substance.

I'm not saying I agree with it, or how exactly the contents of someone's pockets constitutes commerce between the states, but I don't know of anyone being locked up solely on grounds of "addiction".

|11.11.06 @ 1:33PM|#

what about public intoxication? The type where no one is bothering anyone else.

Larry A|11.11.06 @ 2:06PM|#

To be fair, police do not arrest people for having a narcotic addiction either. People are arrested for possession of a controlled substance. ... I don't know of anyone being locked up solely on grounds of "addiction".

OTOH with the diseases you can get prescriptions to use and therefore possess the controlled substances.

Also the government won't permit your employer to make you take random tests for brain tumors, cancer, AIDS, or heart disease and then summarily fire you and take away your health benefits if the tests are positive. The government requires many employers to do so in the case of drug use.

Nobody Important|11.12.06 @ 9:35AM|#

Also the government won't permit your employer to make you take random tests for brain tumors, cancer, AIDS, or heart disease and then summarily fire you and take away your health benefits if the tests are positive.

Gattaca wasn't a documentary about the future?

B|11.12.06 @ 3:03PM|#

Anyone else notice how far-fetched these anti-drug messages have become? and how short-lived the campaigns are?

Used to be, they said "drugs are bad, they ruin your life", and those ran a long time - but people made fun of the ads and had lots of counterexamples, so they turned to "drugs are bad, they ruin your family's life" - but no one bought that either, so they turned to "your buying marijuana is funding terrorists", which was laughable on many levels, so the ads changed to, "no, really, drugs are dangerous - at least if you're driving", which was less than compelling for drug users who do NOT drive under the influence, so the latest ads are saying, "OK, so drugs probably WON'T hurt you in an obvious way, but drugs are bad because if you take drugs, you aren't outside risking your life doing extreme sports, and living the way WE think you ought to live", and, of course, the ads described here about how it would be better to have a fatal disease.

In fact, the last few ad campaigns have been such a joke that I'm suspecting that some pro-drug moles have gotten inside the Partnership for a Drug-free America. Really. Drugs are bad because users don't feel like participating in a society that they may be trying to escape from anyway? I've never been interested in drugs myself - never wanted them, never tried them - but that doesn't mean I don't recognize BULLSHIT when I see it.

And what I see is an anti-drugs message that is running out of steam, and an anti-drugs campaign desperately in search of a problem. It should be obvious by now that the anti-drugs campaigners first determined that drugs should be banned, and afterwards started looking for reasons. I'd like to be positive and say that they are getting to the point where they can't even convince themselves any more, but I'm afraid there are no limits to madness and stupidity.

|11.12.06 @ 5:36PM|#

"As Thomas Szasz has observed, one hallmark of a true disease is that people are not constantly insisting it's a disease."

While I think that the idea that 'addition is worse than cancer' is rather silly, this counter is equally unsound. All this, and what follows it, refers to is public perception, not an objective definition of 'disease'. Pick one of those and then this either falls under it or it doesn't.

|11.12.06 @ 6:08PM|#

@B
I agree. To this I'd add: it's equally ridiculous that these idiotic commercials are followed by prescription drug ads which end in the micro-machines voice with lines like "has been known to cause sleepiness, dry eyes, abdominal pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and in rare cases death." Careful here - I'm not arguing against the latter, I'm saying it would be an inexcusable lapse in critical thinking to treat them as completely independent and unrelated.

|11.13.06 @ 1:54AM|#

anti drug adverts only make sense to advertising execs with cocaine nosebleads

Larry A|11.13.06 @ 1:20PM|#

The prescription drug ad that makes me laugh is the one that says, "Tell your doctor if you've had a kidney transplant."

Doh!