According to Raw Story, Darren Aronofsky directed an anti-meth public service television ad. And it’s creepy as hell! Seriously, this is the most disturbing PSA I’ve ever seen:

Do you have opinions?

26 replies on “This Is Slightly Less Horrifying than The Fountain”

  4. That was really well done… although she obviously has way too much flesh on her face and body to be a REAL meth addict… but good make-up job!

    Like they say, if it keeps just ONE person from losing themselves to that shit…….

  7. @3 Is correct. Requiem for a Dream is the best anti-drug PSA ever made. It’s brilliant because it’s honest about the fact that drugs are fun, sometimes profitable, and in the long run a very bad thing to base your life on.

  10. Can’t we just be honest?? We KNOW that scare tactics don’t work! If she had asked, ‘what does meth do?’ she might get the answer that it is associated with depression and suicide, but a truthful person would also tell her that “Methamphetamine increases alertness, concentration, energy, and in high doses, may induce euphoria, enhance self-esteem and increase libido” (thanks, Wikipedia!). Any serious and respectable discussion of drugs has to include what people like about them and a rational analysis of their costs and benefits. Imo a much more effective ad would focus on harm reduction: something along the lines of, we know that some people watching this are struggling with their meth use and want help; here’s where to go for judgment-free treatment.

  14. Meth induced psychosis and/or hallucinations are the worst drug effect I’ve had personal encounters with, on the street, in hospitals, and in the courts. Plus, the way meth twists the users way of processing information over times is worse than coke or heroin. We should try to reach meth users as early a possible to get them off that shit. Unfortunately, other than parents/family noone is around them enough to have an impact, so if they don’t have family to help the only intervention they are likely to get is the court system…

    Maybe the users won’t be scared, but someone who has the capacity to help might be more motivated…

  15. @10 FTW here too

    Yes, I’ve seen meth addicts become suicidal in the intense depression of a crash. But these were all people who had been struggling with addiction for a while. Often, they’d already recognized they had a serious problem and were making efforts to quit.

    This ad will not speak to the experience of those who are trying out meth for the first time or so. And that’s the problem with the scare tactics: they generally speak to long-term consequences, while the short-term experiences of naive users frequently contradicts what’s in the ad. And that makes people think that the ad is lying.

    Granted, this is a very difficult message to transmit honestly in 30 seconds (same reason political ads generally suck). It mostly tells me that PSAs are kind of problematic for curbing drug abuse.

  16. @10 — This isn’t like being honest with kids about weed being essentially harmless. Meth is fucking scary. You could list the short-term “benefits” of any drug, including heroin or crack, but isn’t it generally understood that people do drugs to get high? The purpose of this PSA and other anti-drug campaigns is to educate people about the negative consequences of drug use, simple as that. It’s not dishonest to depict meth as something that kills.

  17. I am not so sure scare tactics like this really work, but it is a powerful video. Meth induced psychosis is a very real thing . As someone who works in the mental health field, I can tell you the effects and after effects of meth use can be devastating on the brain even after short term use.

  19. Scare tactics do work; watch the Libertine and see how you consider your own drinking habits thereafter.

    I thought Fountain was a great film. I think many theatre-goers can hardly see beyond their own expectations. For that reason, foreign language literature and frequently even more complex English literature is utterly unavailable to even the most supposedly deft American critic. To them, if the pacing isn’t just so perfect as to make the whole theatre experience utterly without discomfort, then the work is worth nothing. Readers and viewers out to feel pain in the cinema. I am utterly bored with feel-good bullshit.

    I am always glad, at least, to experience something I’ve never seen before. Of course glad isn’t exactly the word; somewhat more is it like a beautiful sadness.

  21. And yet the vast majority of people who use meth, cocaine, or heroin never go on to dependency.

    13 million Americans have used meth at least once in their lifetimes, or 19% of the US population over 12yo. Are 1/5 of the people you see everyday raving meth psychotics?

    Compare that to 353 thousand current meth users.

    http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/27

    That is why these sorts of scare PSAs are a joke.

  22. That is not to say that amphetamine psychosis isn’t real. It is, and it is fucking horrifying. Scare PSAs aren’t the way to disseminate that crucial information, though.

  23. In my opinion, this ad was aimed at the family and friends of loved ones using, not so much the actual user. Sure it’s a scare tactic, but if it gets across the message to help before it’s too late, good.

    I wish I hadn’t watched this video today.

  26. For everyone who thinks scare tactics don’t work… I’m sorry, but they do if they’re not bullshit. I’m not that far out of high school, and one of the most effective assemblies I ever went to was the one where they showed us incredibly graphic images of all the diseases that you can get from tobacco use. I’m pretty sure NO ONE wanted to use chewing tobacco after they saw the lip cancer one.

    What doesn’t work are anti-pot scare tactics, because the fact is, they totally have to blow up the effects of pot to make them scary at all. Because meth-induced psychosis is real, though, I think a lot of kids will have this in their mind.

    Also, I think scare tactics work better on younger people. I guess that I feel like even if scare tactics don’t work long-term, if they work long enough to keep 15-year-olds from trying shit until they’re 20, that at least is something.

Comments are closed.