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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @07:22PM
Clearly Nancy Regan's just say no was naivete.
It ignored both the lessons of prohibition and the causes, symptoms, and treatments for these few who become drug (including alcohol and legal pharma) addicts.
The resulting war on drugs has created both criminal and criminal justice industries with the folks she was trying to help as cannon fodder.
There has to be a better way.
I have never understood why the children of the 60's, who are now the old farts in charge, are such idiots on this subject.
Opportunities for improvement include removing the profit motive by treating the industry more like alcohol.
It's hard to come up with a believable argument for not doing this for drugs less harmful than alcohol.
Given the problems with alcohol, that's a pretty high bar for a wide variety of drugs to fit under.
This would remove a monopoly from both the alcohol and pharma industries.
There would be a significant lobbying hurdle to overcome even without the criminal justice industries.
Another opportunity is to focus rehab more towards a medical issue and away from a criminal issue.
There are wide swaths of the medical profession which would have to learn something new to accomplish this.
The biggest opportunity is to reconcile the difference between the public stance on drugs and reality.
Saying that just one try will hook you for the rest of your soon to be short life may be true for some drugs.
But to claim this for all things illegal undermines the useful message of moderation.