The War on Drugs in the 1980s and 1990s did very little to benefit me. I recall commercials aimed at me, as a child, who watched cartoons like JEM. While JEM and the Snorks and Gummy Bears were, often, truly outrageous, nothing was more curious than the commercial interludes. What with the toys and the thosands of cereal commercials selling cookies for brefast…followed by then very serious commercials about crack, heroin, drugs, drunk driving. Suddenly, the world of drugs, which I simply didn’t get much exposure to, became an area of curiosity. What are drugs?
About the same time in life we began to have a strange new program introduced to us at school: D.A.R.E. Drug Abuse Resistance Education. I have very strong memories of the D.A.R.E. program. I remember a police officer coming into our class. He was dressed in full regalia and built like Sylvester Stalone. He was a professional body-builder, and we all thought he was cool because we were 7 years old and this guy had muscles. And we got to ask him questions about crack cocaine, heroin, LSD and the coolest new drug on the market: ICE.
I remember Kathy McIrish-something, who turned to me and said, quietly, “Wow, he’s a real Dego.”
I had no idea what that meant. So, in the middle of his presentation I blurted out, “Hey, What’s a Dego?”
I was scared shitless of the nuns at the time. Sister Claire gave me all the more reason to fear them.
“Matthew Bulman, don’t you ever say that word again!” She chastised me without educating me, which is really what Catholicism is all about, isn’t it.
Many years later, as I look back on the incident, it seems very absurd to me. The police officer was clearly using steroids. It was the 80’s. He was freakishly large. At one point, in the yard, we were playing a game called peg-em, where if the ball hits you, you have to run and touch the wall to gain immunity. The ball rolled up to him, and his arms were literally too large to properly throw a ball. Either that, or he was completely unathletic. It occurs to me now that perhaps he was just someone with anxiety who used to get beat up as a child, and went into the police force to make up for his lack of power by beating up on other people. Or perhaps he was assigned to us children as an amends for getting caught using popular illicit drugs, like steroids or cocaine.
In any case, time progressed. I continued to watch The Smurfs, The Gummy Bears, JEM, and really scary commercials about drug abuse. Other than the Gummy Bears drinking some strange elixir that caused them to act brazen and brave, the first information I really got about drugs came from these same two sources: DARE and The War on Drugs commercials. But neither of these sources really offered me a credible, aversive experience. They were just awkward curiosities.
And so, here, I offer the world my version of a commercial that would address and prevent early drug dependency for adolescent boys with an effective scare tactic. It is told like an allegory.
The allegory of the nervous teenager who must give a school presentation: Don’t do drugs
I am reminded of the story of the teenager who was about to give his first major presentation at school. Geoffrey, now 9 years old, had hoped to get through his first school presentation without much notice. He was an anxious child, and not one to enjoy the spotlight or attention of his classmates. And he struggled with an uneasy feeling. That uneasy feeling was known as anxiety. But Geoffrey didn’t know the feeling had a name.
He was a good boy, perhaps a little nervous, but he had a decent sense of morality and regularly helped his mother. On the way to school the day of his presentation, his mother decided to take him to see their grandfather, who, in his dotage was beginning to show signs of dementia.
Grandfather had a medicine cabinet filled with lolly coloured medications. Geoffrey had learned in school that some people took pills to make them feel dreamy and happy, alleviating the sense of nervousness. Would this help his undiagnosed anxiety?
Geoffrey, who was about to give his presentation at school, began to experience strange subtle sensations throughout his body, especially in his hands and stomach, which felt like light waves of vibration. Geoffrey had poor emotional awareness. Unaware of the emotional state of anxiety, Geoffrey reached into grandfather’s medicine cabinet curious to find out if there was any of the alleged happy medication. And, boy, did Geoffrey ever find medication. Grandfather had a medicine cabinet filled with lolly coloured medications. Behind the silver slab of a mirror, Geoffrey found a neon-coloured bottle labeled, “Happy Pills” and assumed they helped with anxiety. .
But one of the many things Geoffrey didn’t know about is the concept of polypharmacy. Also, Goeffrey’s Grandfather was sexually active and taking Viagra. What Geoffrey assumed was an opioid pain medication actually was a Viagra.
During the presentation, Geoffrey ended up with a raging boner. Unable to control himself, he remained embarrassed and required years of psychotherapy. All because he had an underdeveloped sense of emotional intelligence due to, in a large part, parental and societal neglect in the area of emotional awareness.
So, unless you want raging boners in public, it’s best to learn to understand your emotions. And don’t do drugs.
This has been a public service announcement from The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.
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