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Colorado's "don't be a lab rat" attack tries to accomplish the point that we don't apperceive what marijuana does to the boyish brain. via dontbealabrat.com hide caption
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via dontbealabrat.com Colorado's "don't be a lab rat" attack tries to accomplish the point that we don't apperceive what marijuana does to the boyish brain.
via dontbealabrat.com Colorado's new attack to avert boyhood marijuana use tries to accomplish the case that edger is bad for your brain.
One TV ad shows a accumulation of adolescence lighting up central a aphotic car as angry music plays in the background. The bartering cites a Duke University abstraction that begin a articulation amid approved marijuana use and a lower IQ.
"Some altercation the study," the PSA admits. "But what if years from now you apprentice those scientists were right?" The article comes as the arena fades to black: "Don't be a lab rat."
The campaign, which launched aftermost month, is advised to ambition kids in the 12 to 15 age group. It additionally includes a website with links to account belief about the abrogating furnishings of marijuana (including a few on NPR.org).
To added reinforce the message, the bureau has installed huge, human-sized rat cages abreast libraries and skate parks in Denver and at concert venues like Red Rocks Amphitheater. "It's like a big art installation," says Mike Sukle, who runs Sukle, the ad bureau the accompaniment assassin to architecture the campaign. "It's the coolest affair that we've anytime gotten to assignment on," Sukle says. "But it's a huge challenge."
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This human-scale lab rat cage is anchored abreast a skate esplanade in Denver, Colo., to accomplish a point about the abridgement of science on marijuana. Richard Feldman Studio/Sukle Advertising and Design hide caption
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Richard Feldman Studio/Sukle Advertising and Design This human-scale lab rat cage is anchored abreast a skate esplanade in Denver, Colo., to accomplish a point about the abridgement of science on marijuana.
Richard Feldman Studio/Sukle Advertising and Design Ever aback recreational marijuana was legalized in Colorado in January, accessible bloom admiral accept faced an aberrant challenge: answer to adolescence why they shouldn't smoke edger alike admitting it's acknowledged for their parents to do so.
Surveys and focus groups the accompaniment conducted above-mentioned to ablution the attack advance that some adolescence didn't accept a clue that smoker marijuana could aching them, Sukle says. "Because of medical marijuana, a lot of kids anticipation it convalescent cancer. They actually started cerebration there was no abuse to it."
Campaigns adjoin boyhood bubbler and tobacco use accept about focused on the bloom risks. But while there's no absence of analysis that shows tobacco is bad for us, the analysis on marijuana's furnishings is still in the basic stages. Aback marijuana isn't acknowledged in best states, it's been adamantine for advisers to get federal allotment for studies, as able-bodied as admission to ample amounts of the substance. The Colorado attack depends on baby studies that are hardly bulletproof.
Shots - Bloom News
Evidence On Marijuana's Bloom Furnishings Is Hazy At Best
"The accuracy of boyhood marijuana users appearance cogent abnormalities," the website says. That's technically accurate — advisers from Northwestern University empiric differences in the accuracy of 20 accidental pot users as compared to 20 nonusers. However, the advisers can't say that these differences are acquired by marijuana use, and there isn't any affirmation to appearance that these differences are associated with any harm. Plus the cardinal of bodies in the abstraction is so baby it's not reliable.
"A lot of the facts are from studies that are preliminary. And we capital to be honest with the kids about that," Sukle says. Hence the 'lab rat' theme. "Maybe [marijuana] isn't activity to be as bad as it looks," he says, but it could be actually damaging. The attack asks adolescence whether they appetite to booty that risk.
To be sure, there is a growing anatomy of affirmation that shows that marijuana isn't acceptable for the developing brain, says Dr. Herbert Kleber, who directs the Analysis on Actuality Abuse at Columbia University. "The boyish academician is still maturing," he says, and adolescence who use marijuana are added acceptable to become abased on it than adults.
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Fear mongering didn't assume to assignment for the 1930s blur "Reefer Madness." Posterwire/Wikipedia hide caption
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Posterwire/Wikipedia Fear mongering didn't assume to assignment for the 1930s blur "Reefer Madness."
Posterwire/Wikipedia Plus these canicule marijuana contains added of the consciousness-expanding additive THC than the being that John Lennon acclimated to smoke aback in the 60s, Kleber says.
The agitation is, those letters aren't actually as specific or acute as the ones in Colorado's campaign. That's allotment of the claiming in developing a accessible bloom campaign, says Kathleen Kelly, the administrator of the Center for Marketing and Social Issues at Colorado Accompaniment University who is not complex in the "lab rat" campaign.
"What you accept to be actual accurate about is that your bulletin is aboveboard and it's believable," Kelly says. "Don't be a lab rat" is a far cry from alarm campaigns like Refer Madness, the 1939 anti-marijuana blur that has become a affected classic. "They're not accession the bulletin as this is actually fact."
Colorado's access seems promising, Kelly says. "Colorado is aggravating to use a action that's somewhat agnate to what they do with the Truth attack adjoin cigarettes," she says.
That campaign, which is adjourned by the nonprofit American Legacy Foundation, aims to betrayal "Big Tobacco's lies and manipulation" and appearance kids how the industry tries to beat them into smoking. "The basal bulletin is don't be fabricated a fool," Kelly says. "Don't let them argue you that this is safe"
In Colorado, Sukle's close and third-party evaluators are tracking how teenagers are responding to the message. Still, while the attack may abash some adolescence from aggravating marijuana, it doesn't advise those who are activity to use it anyhow how to abate risk.
"The aboriginal bulletin we charge to get out there is 'Don't use marijuana,' " says Dr. Leslie Walker, arch of the Boyish Medicine analysis at Seattle Children's Hospital. "But if you do, don't get abaft the wheel."
Researchers and accessible bloom admiral are still aggravating to amount out the best means to allocution to adolescence about the drug, Walker says. "I anticipate we accept some added assignment to do."