This is Your Brain on PSA's
As a teen in today's America, I am bombarded everyday with drugs. Whether it's the crazy guy on the corner, a blockbuster movie, hanging out with my friends, or sitting around watching TV, drugs are everywhere. In response to this, the government and media have gone to great lengths in the ongoing war on drugs. I wonder how with such focus from the media and government drug use still flourishes and what possible effects the drug prevention service announcements have on the masses.Anti-drug public service announcements (PSAs) started in the 1950s but it was not until the 1980s that it focused so much on the youth. For children growing up in the late 80s anti-drug PSAs were as much a part of daily life as Silver Spoons and Full House. With many yuppie parents in the work force, this latch key generation was guided by Television. Post playground cartoons were often interrupted by messages from the Partnership for a Drug Free America. "Just say no" - "Winners don't do drugs" - "This is your brain on drugs"- all of these catch phrases are well known to any American who own a Television. For 90s youth anti-drug PSAs made way into the classroom via Channel One airing "What's your anti-drug?" every commerc
Flaws though have been found in the drug-prevention PSA strategies. For example, social threats have been found to be more effective than physical threats on intention to use drugs (Schoenbachler and Whittler) but one would expect social threats to be less effective in high sensation seekers. A segment of the population that seeks out novel, unique and dangerous stimuli would not be affected by social threats, because if society's opinions matters that much to them, they wouldn't be defined as the skydiving thrill seeking people in the first place. In addition, the appeal of physical and social threats in PSAs are loosing credibility. Today's political world is crawling with drug use, with the Presidents admittance to some past drug use, and at least one candidate in every election with some known history of drug use. If socially threatening strategies like "the result of drug use is rejection by friends and society" could ever be disproven, they have been done so by the President himself: certainly he was not rejected my society. Massachusetts and Arizona have both passed laws permitting the medical use of marijuana: physically threatening strategies about the dangers of drugs will
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Approximate Word count = 802
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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