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Tuesday, September 19, 2006

The Drug War Heads to YouTube

Posted by on September 19 at 9:30 AM

And the Associated Press counts down the minutes until people start turning the government’s anti-drug YouTube ads into YouTube spoofs.

The decision to distribute anti-drug, public-service announcements and other videos over YouTube represents the first concerted effort by the U.S. government to influence customers of the popular service, which shows more than 100 million videos per day…

“If just one teen sees this and decides illegal drug use is not the path for them, it will be a success,” said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the drug office.

“Welcome to the great experiment,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. He predicted computer-savvy critics of U.S. drug policies will quickly edit the government’s videos to produce parodies and distribute those on YouTube.

Pot-heads, start your search engines…


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"If just one teen sees this and decides illegal drug use is not the path for them, it will be a success"? That's setting the bar pretty fucking low. I'd like to see their cost-benefit analysis for that.

No doubt the Drug Warriors will be greeted as liberators!

Haha... all their videos have been downrated to one star already.

Guess Youtube users doesn't tolerate government propaganda.

Chris> the pathetic thing is they won't even reach that low mark. I can't believe people still think those stupid PSAs have any influence.

Santa Clause is more believable.

The drug "warriors" are so clueless it's pathetic.

Are they the funny ones like the egg and frying pan or the one with the train killing people?


I realize that the gov't is run by Bush appointees, so this isn't a surprise, but don't they realize that people actively click on what they WANT TO WATCH, and not like on TV, where you watch what is on the channel when its on? Mostly likely not, that's why this waste of tax payers money is funny to me.

When, oh when, is our weirdly Puritanical, hopelessly repressed society going to stop wasting money and resources on trying to stop people from seeking ways to pleasure themselves? Why not, oh, I dunno, use law enforcement money to stop rape and murder and corporate crimes that victimize millions instead of punishing a few annoying potheads for wanting to eat Doritos and watch anime instead of being good little corporate drones like they're supposed to be?

Just when you think the drug war stupidity/hysteria has peaked...

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