Pubdate: Sun, 10 Aug 2014
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold
Page: 8A

AD PUSH TARGETS POT USE BY TEENS

"Don't Be a Lab Rat" Campaign Will Test a New Strategy in State.

When the Colorado governor's office asked ad man Mike Sukle to design 
a campaign to discourage youth marijuana use, Sukle knew it wouldn't be easy.

He'd done anti-methamphetamine campaigns before. But staying away 
from meth is an easier sell: Show some busted teeth, some pockmarked 
skin, no sweat.

How do you encourage kids not to use marijuana at a time when 
acceptance of pot is at historic highs and Colorado is more awash in 
conflicting marijuana messages than any place in the country?

"This was a tricky one," Sukle said.

The result launches Monday, when workers begin dropping human-size 
rat cages around Denver and ads that acknowledge debate about how 
dangerous marijuana is begin running on television and in movie theaters.

The campaign is called "Don't Be a Lab Rat." The idea is to suggest 
to kids that Colorado has become a testing ground on the consequences 
of marijuana legalization - and they will be the test subjects if they use pot.

Sukle said the goal isn't to scare kids with the usual claims about 
what will happen to them if they use marijuana. Instead, it's to 
unsettle them with the uncertainty that they can't be sure what will happen.

"We don't say, 'It's absolute'; we say, 'This study exists. Some 
people dispute that. Make up your own mind,' " Sukle said. "At some 
point, they have to make up their mind. The days of Just Say No, that 
was a fairly failed effort."

Marijuana-prevention advertising is at a crossroads nationwide.

A total of 36 states now have laws that conflict in some way with 
federal law and allow for some kind of use of marijuana. Teen 
marijuana use rates have been inching upward nationally since 2000, 
and teens' perceptions of marijuana's harmfulness are nearing 
historic low levels.

Crafting a message to dissuade kids from using drugs always has been 
a tightropewalk, and the history of such campaigns is mostly marked by failure.

The DARE campaign, a staple in classrooms two decades ago, has been 
shown in numerous studies to have had little impact on teen drug use. 
A study published last year revealed that when parents try to 
discourage their kids from using drugs by talking about their own 
youthful experimentation, kids are less likely to perceive drug use 
as harmful. A study from 2005 showed that anti-drug ads often 
backfire and instead prompt experimental curiosity in kids, in part 
because they cause kids to think that everybody else is already doing drugs.

What many of the campaigns shared was a theme: Fear. But Ohio State 
University professor Michael Slater, an expert on drug prevention 
campaigns, said trying to scare kids away from marijuana usually 
isn't effective because many teens see themselves as risk-takers. 
Telling that group to be afraid comes across more like a challenge.

"Those kids are more likely to experiment with drug use," Slater said.

One campaign Slater found to be effective used that dynamic to its 
benefit. The nationwide "Above the Influence" campaign, which began 
in 2005, portrayed marijuana use as stifling - and told kids to be rebels.

"As long as it's seen as a way to rebel and feel independent, kids 
will explore that," Slater said.

Conscious of the graveyard of previous anti-marijuana campaigns, 
Sukle and his team built the "Lab Rat" campaign from ground up. They 
started by recruiting kids to hang out with friends in places 
familiar to them - their homes, for instance, or a recreation center 
- - and talk about marijuana.

In those hangouts, the ad folks pitched some possible messages. 
Marijuana could cost you a scholarship was one. Marijuana could land 
you in trouble was another. But none of those messages stuck, Sukle said.

There was some brief discussion about using celebrities in ads. But 
internal e-mails suggest that Sukle's agency wasn't thrilled with the 
idea of using one spokesman that Gov. John Hickenlooper has publicly 
suggested: 81-year-old country music star and noted marijuana 
enthusiast Willie Nelson. Will many kids even know who he is, the ad 
folks asked?

"If we're going to talk to kids, we need to be sure the message- and 
the messenger - will resonate," a member of Sukle's team wrote, as 
quoted in an e-mail from a Hickenlooper staffer that was obtained 
through an open-records request.

Ultimately, Sukle decided, the ads needed to hit on something 
personal: The kids' sense of self. When teens were told about 
research that suggests marijuana could affect developing brains, it 
bothered them.

"Their brain makes them who they are," Sukle said. "Their brain is 
the key to opening up all those experiences down the road."

Teens, naturally, also didn't like the idea of being watched. "Don't 
Be A Lab Rat" was born.

The project will cost about $2 million, much of which comes from a 
grant from the state attorney general's office that itself comes from 
legal settlements with various pharmaceutical companies, according to 
the governor's office.

The campaign will feature a handful of human-size rat cages - 
complete with attached giant water bottles - scattered throughout the 
city and festooned with posters bearing the campaign's messaging. One 
poster, for instance, will read: "Volunteers needed. Must have a 
developing brain. Must smoke weed. Must not be concerned about schizophrenia."

The television and movie theater spots have a similar tone. In one, 
teens are shown lighting up in a smoke-filled car. Text on screen 
tells of a Duke University study that argued teenage marijuana use 
causes lasting drops in IQ.

"Some dispute that study," the text continues. "But what if, years 
from now, you learn they were right?"

A web site, DontBeALabRat.com, will provide links to the studies. 
Will it work? Sukle said it might take a couple of years to find out, 
although the state will be monitoring the response actively.

Marijuana activist Mason Tvert - himself no stranger to an eye 
catching ad, having once put a picture of a bikini-clad woman on a 
pro-legalization billboard - is skeptical.

He said the ad campaign sounds like more fear-mongering. Referencing 
the classic frying-egg ad with the message, "This is your brain on 
drugs," Tvert said the "Lab Rat" campaign is basically just a twist: 
"This is your brain. It could fry."

"What it comes down to is are the ads intended to scare them or are 
the ads intended to inform them?" he asked. "These ads are intended 
to scare them."

But state officials are hopeful. In a statement last week 
accompanying the release of a new survey on teen marijuana use in 
Colorado, state health department head Larry Wolk referenced the 
campaign. The survey showed that Colorado teens' perceptions of 
marijuana's harmfulness - already among the lowest in the nation - 
had dropped again, but showed no increase in marijuana use.

"If we want Colorado to be the healthiest state in the nation," Wolk 
said, "then we need to make sure our youngest citizens understand the 
risks of using potentially harmful substances."
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