The pot is not full of cool, kind

News 22 March, 2018
  • Screen Capture Youtube
    The prevention campaigns against the cannabis of the government of Québec hammer the message “You can have fun without taking them.” In addition to being a great cliché, it is completely ineffective with young people.

    Annabelle Blais

    Thursday, march 22, 2018 14:47

    UPDATE
    Thursday, march 22, 2018 14:47

    Look at this article

    Yo, the young. The drug, and you do not need to use it to make you a lot of fun. We, the club of the cool people, one carbide to the clear water and the pure air.

    This kind of messages in the campaigns of pubs there already, in the history of humanity, convinced a young teen to make the choice of a life away from the hell of the drug?

    Ask the question is to answer it. Better to laugh, I guess.

    The government of Quebec has yet chosen this path for its campaigns for the prevention of the pot where all the pubs are complete all by the sentence: “You can have fun without taking it, like me.”

    It reminded me of this old pub of 1988 with children who had the air really too young to be smoking a joint: “the rest of us, we don’t need that for fun.” And the daughter of the war of The tuques showed that she knew how to have fun with her beautiful collages and, watch out, a basketball. More fun than that, you strikes the hand on the thighs. As if there was no way to fart a time to the basketball gang after a four papers.

    “This sentence not need drugs to have fun’, this is a snapshot of the prevention for several decades,” explained Jean-Philippe Had, a professor at the school of psychoeducation of the Université de Montréal and is a specialist in the prevention of drug abuse.

    Several people, on hearing this sentence, say, ‘I don’t need pot to have fun, but I can also be with’.

    At least, it was not entitled to a dealer gothic-machiavellian who whispers to a young boy of 10 years old : “Heille, leave that to your courses and just smoking the drug.”

    The Americans, in all their excess, sometimes, are past masters in the art of the pubs completely caricatured.

    As this pub of the Ninja Turtles where a young person is dealing with the chicken because he does not want to smoke a joint. It replicates then to the dealer : “I’m not chicken, you’re a turkey.”

    Sent, little Joey. Sent.

    And the turtle Donatello (the one who wears the headband of purple and is armed with a menacing stalk of bamboo), then adds: “the dealers are morons, don’t even talk about!”

    Cowabunga! (And you can bet that little Joey will do a wedgie on a Monday morning at school)

    Good you’re going to tell me that this is an old pub, but in 2009, the federal government, Harper is strongly inspired by the fear-mongering american.

    More recently, in Australia, the campaign Stoner Sloth (a sloth, the animal, ben froze) me has made laugh so much it is exaggerated.

    At the Forum of experts on the cannabis last summer, the professor Had had yet warned against the annoying habit to want to dramatize the messages of prevention. He had taken the word in the presence of health professionals, public officials and even the minister Lucie Charlebois, who pilot project of law on cannabis, in Quebec.

    Not only the message seems not to have been heard, but Jean-Sebastien Necessary, which is considered to be THEE expert in the prevention of drug abuse, was not even consulted by the government for the development of campaigns.

    Hello, Earth!? Looks like our prime minister.

    If Quebec had bothered to consult the expert, it would suggest this: rather than say to the young person, you don’t need pot to have fun, we would have been able to send as a message: if you’re not able to have fun without having eaten, ask yourself questions, because it may be a bad sign.

    “It is not the same idea, the nuance is major and we talk to the young more mature,” explains the professor.

    He could also tell them that their campaign should avoid exaggerations ridiculous like : if you smoke, you risk to forget the feast of your friend or even worse to forget your soccer practice.

    “So let’s see, it doesn’t make sense!”, added Jean-Philippe Had. The memory that is affected by cannabis is that of the language, but not episodic memory.”

    Forget about his soccer practice, it’s just not credible. And teens are usually a good detector of bullshit.

    “If we’re exaggerating, this is not efficient, and it produces the opposite effect,” said professor Had. The young people say, ‘well, come on!’, they no longer listen to anything after, because they know that they are taking for luggage, suitcases and carry on by boat.”

    Mr. Had believed that the last advertising on tv these days is less worse, because there is a sense of humour. And we don’t tell people not to consume, but to inform. This is already an improvement.

    And at least, in the pubs of the government of Quebec – with the exception of the episode on the oversights of soccer practice – the negative effects of cannabis cited are those that are generally consensus among the experts. It is less worse than the federal government and Health Canada, which had made a pub four years ago in which they said that the pot fell to the quotient, which is highly disputed in the scientific community.

    But the good prevention, it is not so much the tv ads or the packaging of products.

    “The good prevention, it is done in the schools, said the teacher Had. But I fear that we take young people for fools, I’ve heard of programs that say to young people that pot is not less dangerous than alcohol, but that is not true.”

    And it should also stop to say that “it is dangerous, do not”. It is better to have a harm reduction approach for those who choose to drink.

    “Yes, it takes prevention, but it must be effective, otherwise do not, it’s just a waste of public funds”, he insists.

    Sent, a teacher Had to be. Sent.

    And in your mouth, Donatello. You’ve never been my favorite anyway.