This irony was too great not to mention. I'm watching TV and see an ad telling young people they have two choices: to be under the influence, or to be above the influence.
In other words, be your own person; don't follow others.
Now then, follow what we say.
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There's nothing like mass consumer advertising to influence kids to uninfluence themselves. Of course, it's not to create an absence of influence, merely to replace one influence with another.
When did we get to be such sissies? Maybe I'm just a superhuman warrior or something, but why don't we just teach kids to grow some...spine? All this psychobabble about peer pressure and nobody being perfect and all, it misses the whole point. If you don't want to do drugs, Nancy Reagan was right; just freakin' say no. People don't hassle you about it, they don't cause you trouble, and it's the best way to tell your friends where you stand. That's how you develop the confidence to live your life rather than the life of your friends, family, classmates, or anybody else.
Of course, the ads aren't really aimed at kids; they're aimed at parents worried about kids. It's based on fearmongering, this attempt to make drug users this "other" group of quasi-human, no good evildoers. And that's the inherent failure of the ridiculous "just say no" campaign and its various descendants. The vast majority of drug users don't use drugs against their will; they choose to do so. Ad campaigns like this seem to confuse human relations (which almost always involve some level of attempt to influence others) with more specific problems of coercion and the protection of miners. My goodness, if the problem really is being "under the influence" of others, imagine the destruction that must be wrought by such despicable events as asking a girl (or guy) to a school dance. We must ban them at once!
For the children.
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