Jacob Sullum has a nice takedown of those stupid anti-drug ads that feature people saying things like “I helped kill a judge.” Sullum writes,
The first problem with this syllogism is its unstated moral premise: If some of the people who profit from the sale of a product do “terrible things,” anyone who consumes the product is responsible for those crimes. By this logic, everyone who drives a car is responsible for terrorism because of the links between oil and radical Islam.
“When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden,” comic Bill Maher suggests in the title of his new book. Meanwhile, a little less tongue in cheek, columnist Arianna Huffington has suggested an ad campaign highlighting the connection between oil consumption and terrorism. A script by ad writer Scott Burns has SUV drivers confessing, “I gassed 40,000 Kurds,” “I helped hijack an airplane,” and “I helped blow up a nightclub.” Huffington says she is raising money to produce the ads. Oddly, the Bush administration has not volunteered to chip in.
Sullum also points out that the worst byproducts of the drug trade are created largely as a result of prohibition on the legal sale of drugs.
Source:
Terrible Things: The government defends its anti-drug ads. Jacob Sullum, Reason, December 9, 2002.