What they did was to annoy the hell out of us. Viewers, readers, consumers of culture, are so overloaded with messages that we can't take any more. And I can tell John Howard, before he spends any more of my money on his anti-drug campaign, that pictures of teenagers in body bags, prostituting themselves, stealing all the advertisements in the world are not going to stop children taking drugs. It's not going to work for several reasons.
Overload is one.
What we see, hear and read about drug abuse in Australia is already very graphic. Shock tactics don't work, says Paul Dillon, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre information manager. But, in their defence, he says the new drug ads are not designed for children but for parents and to be used as a starting point in family discussions. I'd like to see that myself. I can imagine the advertisement would mostly pass over the screen unremarked.