This is Your Brain on Drugs

By Auren Hoffman auren@bridgepath.com

Last week, President Clinton made a speech to the United Nations outlining his program for drug prevention. His main plan is to spend $2 billion on an advertising campaign aimed at children to prevent drugs. President Clinton wants ads like "This is your brains on drugs -- any questions?" and "Just Say No" to make a comeback. Maybe we can make a commercial of Bob Dole shouting "Just Don't Do It" (sponsored by Visa, of course). On the face of it, this seems like a something one would definitely support. Targeted ads have been proven to prevent to prevent drugs in kids.

But then I got to thinking -- Two billion dollars! That's a lot of cash.

Shouldn't our White House tandem be reinventing government rather than finding ways to spend our surplus?

Let's follow the Hoffman Plan to drug advertising:

Spend some money on advertising. $100 million can mount a heck of an Internet campaign.

One call from President Clinton to Michael Jordan is all that it takes to get the message "Drugs are for Losers" imprinted in every Nike sneaker. Seeing that message in your shoes every morning would be more effective then a 100 frying eggs. Veep Gore could make calls to Pepsi, Coke, and others to get the message "Don't Do Drugs" imprinted in bottle caps.

Though government's first inclination is always to spend money, the tremendous influence our leaders possess could lead to a significant cost savings with little effort.

SUMMATION: Clinton could save taxpayers some money and decrease drug use by shaking down corporations to support the war on drugs (rather than shaking them down for campaign contributions).

Auren's picture is located at: http://www.summation.net/image/auren.jpg