new drug commercials
I tend to return to this anti-marijuana spot which showed a group of 13 or 14 or 15 year olds, hanging out, discussing their belly-buttons, with the words to the effect of “You don’t have to be high to”, or something to that effect. The problem with that spot, which was the worst one I had ever seen, was that these kids seemed to be high.
Slate discusses the new anti-marijuana campaign.  I think Seth Stevenson may be overthinking the narrative devices and psychological purposes of the advertisements. For example:
Similarly, casting an alien as the guy who sweeps the girl off her feet, while the stoner feebly looks on, eliminates the need to decide what sort of person the girl would be likely to find more appealing than a pot user. Having her new suitor be a drug-free preppie (or jock, or musician, or whatever) would be fraught with all kinds of peril. Not so with an alien—because aliens are always cool.
None of which confuses the fact that… DUDE! An ALIEN just stole that guy’s Girl!!! I must be hallucinating!
Or we get the strange clashing sound found with these two statements:
I spoke to Ginger Robinson and Patty Fogarty, the copywriter and art director who worked pro bono on the campaign at the ad agency Wieden & Kennedy. They told me the scenarios in these spots came from personal experiences.
AND
In a separate spot, a pot smoker’s dog asks him to quit. (I’ll just note here that I’ve never, no matter how blazed, been addressed by a house pet.) When the smoker declines, the dog strolls away, muttering, “You disappoint me.”
DUDE! Dog’s talking to me! FAR OUT!
Actually I am confused by the ending of that “Dog’s talking to me” commercial. Why does the dog hang up a flag, and why does the flag show a picture of that dog?  Is he claiming the land for the Republic of Himself, filling the vacuum left by the dereliction of his stoner-master?
IT JUST DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE!