Arizona looks to run anti-meth ads Here's some good news, despite the stomach-turningly awful graphic above—now the state of Arizona is looking to run this campaign for the Montana Meth Project, which shows the horrors of crystal meth use. (Trust us—this is one of the tamer executions.) Officials from the state are said to be meeting with tech billionaire Thomas Siebel, who is behind the campaign, today to get it on air. In Montana, where the campaign is hard to miss, it's been credited with a 30 percent decline in use of the drug among teens. Arizona would like to see the campaign, created by San Francisco's Venables, Bell & Partners, also include ads created for Spanish-language radio and its native American population. —Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

April 18, 2006 | Permalink

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This campaign takes a lot of hits from ad professionals, which seems strange to me. Toilet sex and flesh slicing are on the minimal end of what meth can inspire. A woman was abducted from the ATM next to my old office by a methhead who raped her repeatedly, then made it to the hospital the next morning to watch his child being born. (Luckily, he was arrested there, too.) Isn't it worth a little stomach-turning for the sake of preventing even a few cases like that? Or should we just take the Slate.com cop-out approach that "it's not as bad as the panic-mongering media says"? Just some thoughts...now back to writing bank fliers.

Posted by: CorruptedJournalist | Apr 18, 2006 10:58:34 AM

I lived in MT when these started running.

I couldn't believe how many people reacted negatively towards the campaign. A lot of people felt they made broad, sweeping generalizations about drug users and actually came to their defense. But the public uproar broke the silence in which the meth epidemic had existed.

A few weekends ago, my wife and I were trying to explain these ads to people. However, their intensity is difficult to communicate. They truly are effective - after the first ads appeared they were the topic of conversation all around Billings.

Posted by: Corey King | Apr 18, 2006 1:15:24 PM

people are often more disturbed by the truth then a lie

I am sure that those who have issues with these campaigns have never had a father/son/wife/grandmother who was a junkie... it is a different animal when it is in your backyard and you have to live with it

meth addiction SHOULD churn your stomach... I just wish is did for that guy who tried it for the first time about an hour ago uptown

Posted by: heathen6 | Apr 18, 2006 4:23:03 PM

I haven't seen these ads but if they are an effective deterrent, then more power to them and the agency that created them. The crack epidemic of the 1980s was very real, and very obvious, to anyone who lived in a city. But that's probably why nobody tried to say its existence was being blown out of proportion. Meth addiction seems to be more of a problem among poor, rural whites who are too often invisible to the media or laughingly dismissed by the general population in "white trash" or "trailer trash" jokes. Curiously, the term "white trash" seems to be the last acceptable perjorative in this politically correct society. And that's a shame.

Posted by: Just a Thought | Apr 18, 2006 6:02:29 PM

Anti Meth Poster designs By Lynn Sota Hart Yankton Sioux from South Dakota

Posted by: Lynn Hart | Nov 23, 2007 3:34:10 PM

Anti Meth Poster designs By Lynn Sota Hart Yankton Sioux from South Dakota

Posted by: Lynn Hart | Nov 23, 2007 3:35:21 PM

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