Anyone who grew up in the U.S. in the 1980s or ’90s can probably recite at least one anti-drug ad. Their slogans became catchphrases, jokes and, eventually, memes.
The classics
The frying egg. In 1987 the Partnership for a Drug-Free America released its most famous spot. A man holds up an egg: “This is your brain.” He cracks it into a hot pan: “This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?” A 1997 remake starring actress Rachael Leigh Cook escalated things by smashing the kitchen with the pan.
“I learned it by watching you!” Another 1987 Partnership ad shows a father confronting his son over a box of drugs. Asked where he learned this, the boy shouts the line that became a national punchline.
“Crack is Wack.” Often misremembered as an ad slogan, it began as a 1986 mural painted by the artist Keith Haring on a handball court in Harlem, which still stands. The phrase came back into pop culture years later when singer Whitney Houston used it in a 2002 television interview.
“Just Say No.” First Lady Nancy Reagan’s campaign, launched in the early 1980s, gave a generation of school assemblies their theme.
Did they work?
That is the uncomfortable part. Memorable is not the same as effective. Researchers have found little evidence that the big media campaigns changed teenage drug use much. A large federally funded evaluation of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, published in 2008, found no favorable effect on youth marijuana use. Studies of the original D.A.R.E. school program also found weak or no long-term effects, and the program has since been redesigned.
Prevention experts now favor approaches that teach decision-making and social skills, and that use honest information rather than scare tactics. The frying egg remains a great piece of television. It just was not much of a public health strategy.
Sources: This Is Your Brain on Drugs, Wikipedia; Crack Is Wack, Wikipedia; Hornik et al., Effects of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign on Youths, American Journal of Public Health (2008).
