This Is Your Hand on Opioids: Trump's 'Very Bad Commercials' Rely on Dishonest and Pernicious Scare Tactics

by | Jun 7, 2018

This Is Your Hand on Opioids: Trump's 'Very Bad Commercials' Rely on Dishonest and Pernicious Scare Tactics

by | Jun 7, 2018

Three months ago, Donald Trump promised to spend “a lot of money” on “very, very bad commercials” that would “scare” teenagers away from opioids by depicting “pretty unsavory situations.” Today the White House unveiled four of those government-sponsored ads, and they are indeed very, very bad, in the sense that they rely on deceptive tropes and misleading half-truths.
“The first four ads, which are based on real life, tell the graphic stories of four young adults going to extreme lengths to maintain their prescription opioid addiction,” says White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “These ads show young adults how quickly opioid addiction can occur, and the extreme lengths to which some go to continue use of drugs while in the grips of addiction.”
All four ads feature young people who deliberately injure themselves so they can obtain prescription pain medication. Amy crashes her car into a dumpster, Kyle smashes his hand with a hammer, Chris closes his arm in a door, and Joe drops a car on himself by crawling under it and releasing the jack. “I didn’t know they’d be this addictive,” each of them says in a voice-over narration. “I didn’t know how far I’d go to get more.”
Read the rest at reason.com.

Our Books

Shop books published by the Libertarian Institute.

libetarian institute longsleeve shirt

Our Books

cb0cb1ef 3fcb 417d 80d8 4eef7bbd8290

Recent Articles

Recent

TGIF: More on Menger and Value

TGIF: More on Menger and Value

Consumer goods are also called finished goods. The products we buy at the supermarket and other retail stores have, in less finished form, passed through many stages (including distribution), reaching back to the original factors of production: land and labor. Land...

read more
A Federal Reserve Unbound

A Federal Reserve Unbound

For more than three decades, the Federal Reserve has steadily expanded its role in the American economy. From a relatively narrow mandate as a lender of last resort to commercial banks, to inflation and employment targeting, it now operates as a systemic backstop for...

read more
Europe Must Stop Playing Pawn to American Power

Europe Must Stop Playing Pawn to American Power

As the world experiences significant geopolitical changes, political blocs like the European Union have a unique opportunity to chart a new path. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union and its twenty-seven member states have delivered...

read more

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This