Are you sitting down? Good, because the city of Boulder has decided to put off the controversial "Don't Be a Lab Rat" campaign, proving that, no matter how much you might think otherwise, giant cages and hamster feeders won't dissuade teenagers from smoking weed. We mean, maybe if you hallucinate them during a bad trip, but otherwise … no.
Are you sitting down? Good, because the city of Boulder has decided to put off the controversial "Don't Be a Lab Rat" campaign, proving that, no matter how much you might think otherwise, giant cages and hamster feeders won't dissuade teenagers from smoking weed. We mean, maybe if you hallucinate them during a bad trip, but otherwise … no.
The campaign, which was aimed at convincing teenagers not to smoke weed, was designed by ad agency Sukle. They were faced with the difficult task of presenting teens with accurate information about weed's effect on teen brains without the gimicks that would turn them off to the idea. … so they decided on the most gimmicky thing they could: human-sized rat cages.
Mike Sukle, who owns the agency rationalized the bizarre choice by saying,"the whole science of developing brains and the effects marijuana has is in its infancy. While there's a pretty good set of research, a lot of people dispute it. They don't believe it. So we wanted to be very honest and straight-forward — to say, 'Here's a study, people dispute it, but do you really want to take that chance? Don't be a lab rat."
Okay, cool. So smoking weed=experimenting=you're a rodent. Got it.
Here's what was supposed to happen: the cages with hamster feeders would be placed on Boulder Valley school grounds, as well as at certain Red Rocks shows and bus stations, then adorned with signs that warned that marijuana could harm the developing brain.
Here's what actually happened: Boulder was all, "Nope." Worried that the controversial campaign wouldn't go over so hot with 12-15 year-olds, was possibly racist, and contained disputed facts about weed's effect on teen brains, the city pulled the plug on the campaign. We're sure that the fact that the campaign was funded by $2 million from pharmaceutical companies had something to do with that as well.
"We had concerns about the use of human-scale rat cages being an effective tool for getting 12- to 15-year-olds to understand the risks involved with their developing brains," school district spokesman Briggs Gamblin said about the decision. Maybe the should have tried giant test tubes instead! Not!
Boulder's rejection of the campaign is a great example of how fear-based advertising concepts such as this one are starting to be seen as ineffective. Although fear-based campaigns often catch attention, they don't keep it because advertising is largely referral-based. And it's difficult to refer a dark, complicated concept to someone else, especially when the referral conversation is happening between 12- to 15-year-olds who are just starting to smoke weed.
Little Billy badass isn't going to tell his friend, as they're toking up, that weed "may" cause neurological impairment if chronically smoked before the brain is fully developed. And if he does, Billy is a 40-year-old ad exec in disguise, and that's creepy. Say hello to a lifetime of goth-hood, Billy.
Messages such as the Lab Rat one that are negative or pessimistic are harder to spread than Chlamydia at a monastery. Case and point: everyone knows cigarettes cause cancer, but people still smoke them even in the presence of heavy advertising against them.
It's not the first time a fear-based concept has failed to enact an effect though; probably the most famous example of a fear-based fail is the "Just Say No" campaign, which was part of President Nixon's War on Drugs. Not only did the campaign have no effect on drug use rates, it was often satirized, eventually becoming a culturally-appropriated fashion icon:
But, in spite of what we know about fear-based advertising and its ineffectiveness at dissuading drug use, Governor John Hickenlooper still wasn't exactly pleased about it Boulder's rejection of the campaign.
“For my part, my largest (downside of legal marijuana is) still teenagers and young people whose brains are still maturing,” Hickenlooper said. “So many of the neuroscientists around are very concerned about this high-THC marijuana and what it can do to a brain that is still in the process of growing.”
It's a strange and contradictory message, especially coming from a man who's responsible for signing marijuana legalization into effect. Why is Colorado's government supporting advertising that directly contradicts the laws they just made, especially when the laws already make marijuana use for those under 21 illegal? As if the decision to smoke weed weren't already enough of a burden for today's young bucks, here's the most powerful man in Colorado telling them not to do something he just encouraged everyone (over 21) to do. Not to mention the fact that the cage implies incarceration, so to some, the marketing gimmick could imply that smoking weed gets you canned. At least in Colorado, simply smoking it definitely doesn't. That not only implies inaccurate information, but it also brings about an unnecessary amount of fear for the campaign's audience at a time where the only fear they should be worrying about is what color braces make their teeth look least shark-like.
Instead of using these fear-based tactics to keep kids out of our weed dojos, shouldn't we be using education to get to them instead? Mike Sukle himself acknowledged that in researching methods to target kids for the anti-weed campaign, he talked with many youngins' about their desire for scientific accuracy and transparency. Why not include marijuana safety education in schools as a more intelligent substitute for trying to scare children with cages? We're not saying it would be easy to work that into curriculums, but it would be more effective than trying to get people to think of themselves as rats.
Or, if all else fails, we think a tactic like this could go over really well:
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