Adam On…

The state of Illinois has teamed up with the Meth Project to produce a number of unbelievably shocking Public Service Announcements to help combat what appears to be a serious Meth problem in the state.

Coming from an era of the “I learned it by watching you!” anti-drug PSA’s, I have to say these new style anti-drug advertisements are incredibly raw. The Meth Project television ads include a young girl in a shower with blood coming out of her future “Meth” self and a young boy in a laundromat watching scared as his future “Meth” self robs the other customers. Intrigued, I decided to visit the Illinois Meth Project web site to check out all the goings on.

The web site itself is exactly what I would have expected from an anti-drug site. I found these two print ads to be even more powerful then the television ads, of course it could just be that I am more familiar with the television ads so the impact is a bit reduced. Then I ran across a something that was so obviously a lie it made me question why it was included in the site.

Under the Meth Info section is are “Real Stories”, supposed true life encounters from either people involved with meth or people with family/friends involved with meth. Why supposed? Everything was going fine until I got to the story titled “I wish I never went to that party with my friend” by a 13 year old Female. Here are just a few of the more outrageous parts of this “real” story:

• 13 year old and her friend were invited to a “high school party” at the age of 11 and the parents allowed this to happen
• Friend brother flew into a rage on the first sampling of meth and attacked his sister
• Friend killed her parents for meth after becoming an addict at the age of 12 or 13
• Friend is moments away from death each and every day
• Apparently Friend was not in jail for killing her and 13 year olds parents were able to take her to rehab despite having no legal authority to do so
• Friend was sexually abused by her brother (who last we knew was in jail) and ran back into the arms of meth
• At age 13, Friend had her first meth baby which she sold for meth, apparently the baby died instantly
• At age 14, Friend is now pregnant with her second meth baby
• 13 year old found out watching the news that Friend committed suicide to impress her meth dealer
• Friends second meth baby was saved and is now in foster care (something that apparently was not offered to parent killing, sexually abused, twice pregnant, meth addicted 14 year old Friend)

Yeah, I’m just gonna stop right there. While I haven’t done the appropriate research into this, I’m going to call BS on this “real” story. The inclusion of what is obviously at the very least an extreme exaggeration is confusing. The whole point of this site is to show just how addictive and dangerous meth can be. Why include a lie?