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AlterNet reports
Twenty years ago [1997-04-21], one of the most memorable ads of all time was launched, when Rachael Leigh Cook and her frying pan starting smashing up eggs in her infamous "This is Your Brain on Drugs" ad.
Today, Rachael Leigh Cook, her frying pan, and eggs are back but this time in a new ad that slams the drug war and its racist enforcement.
The new video, made by Green Point Creative, opens with Cook and her frying pan. She holds up a white egg and explains that it represents one of the millions of Americans who uses drugs but never gets arrested. She then picks up a brown egg and says, "This American is several times more likely to be charged with a drug crime." [Screenshot]
The animated ad, narrated by Cook, then shows what happens to the brown egg that is arrested and funneled through the criminal justice system. The ad highlights a range of harmful collateral consequences that result from drug arrest, including the loss of student financial aid, hindered job prospects and broken up families. The add[sic] contrasts the white egg's family that was never arrested, despite also using drugs.
The ad ends with Cook looking into the camera, holding her pan and [...] a smashed egg, and saying, "The war on drugs is ruining peoples' lives. It fuels mass incarceration, it targets people of color in greater numbers than their white counter parts. It cripples communities, it costs billions, and it doesn't work. Any questions?"
![[Screenshot]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AKXN6Vdr3g0/maxresdefault.jpg){kind=link}
(Score: 4, Informative) by RamiK on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:48PM (7 children)
I'm still something of a believer in drugs frying your brain
There's evidence alcohol causes brain damage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol-related_brain_damage [wikipedia.org]
Boxing and football too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy [wikipedia.org]
Not so for cannabis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_effects_of_cannabis#Brain [wikipedia.org]
And before someone says "because research is illegal", it they still managed to diagnose it with heroin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_leukoencephalopathy#Drug_abuse [wikipedia.org]
Overall, if it causes brain damage, it's so little they can't find it.
compiling...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:51PM (2 children)
Of course they can't find the damage. It's hard enough finding a dope head's tiny brain, how in hell they gonna find the damage?
(Score: 3, Funny) by LVDOVICVS on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:56PM
"Dope head"? I didn't realize the internet was connected to the 1950s.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @05:27PM
Can we meet up in Colorado? I'd love to blow some smoke right in your squidgy little face. Then you'll attack me and I can have fun watching the story pop up here on SN after you try and use the Orange in Chief as your defense.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 23 2017, @04:12PM (1 child)
Please note, neither the original ad, nor my comments, were directed solely at cannabis. The word "drugs" was used.
There is no doubt that overdosing on alcohol causes brain damage - along with kidney and liver damage. Alcohol is most certainly deadly. People can, and do, kill themselves in short order with alcohol poisoning, as well as poisoning themselves long-term, and taking years to die.
Sports can be deadly - but do sports really belong in this discussion? Adrenaline junkies may well be addicted to one sport or another, but they aren't drugs.
Let me rephrase what I think:
Moderate use of some recreational drugs may be alright, but becoming an addict to any drug is deadly, as well as stupid. Since cannabis is one of the least addictive drugs known to man, that almost puts cannabis out of this discussion - except for the fact that it is psychoactive, and commonly used for recreational purposes.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:14PM
Yeah, OMG it's used for recreation so it's just as bad as meth! Now give me my alcohol and sports!
Die in a fire you piece of shit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:20PM
As Runaway1956 has noted, the original ad cast too broad a net, saying "drugs".
...and while use of weed by adults appears to have no long-term effects, repeated use by kids has negative effects on their still-forming brains. [google.com]
In my early adulthood, I tried alcohol and weed.
I found that I don't like the taste of alcohol and I don't particularly care for the out-of-control thing that those bring on and, as such, don't find them to be worth the cost.
I have no particular problem, however, with others using those responsibly (no operating machinery under the influence).
USA.gov has a completely dishonest approach to drugs, categorizing things falsely while ignoring/distorting the existing evidence and blocking further studies.
It's the lying about the subject that makes me want to speak out every time I encounter it.
Prohibition, after a decade-long experiment a century ago proved the notion to be ineffective, as well as the ridiculous amounts of tax money currently spent on prohibition, just irritates the shit out of me.
Ask a youngster, "Which is easier to get: weed or booze?"
He'll tell you, "Weed, dude. Booze takes an ID."
Nobody will sell booze to kids because he knows he'll lose his liquor license.
If USA.gov was to treat weed the way it treats alcohol, regulating its sale and taxing it, it would become a revenue source instead of resource sink.
...and if drugs were properly regulated instead of being made illegal, there wouldn't be quality/purity problems and we'd have had e.g Janis Joplin around and making music for years longer.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @12:55PM
I refrain from all of those activities plus any drugs (No you cannot tax my hard-earned income to pay for your medical expenses).
And I almost guarantee you that there is a negative side-effect from smoking dope.