Whatever your stance on US drug policy, you must admit it's been lucrative for advertising agencies. When the War on Drugs was declared during the Reagan Administration, one of the first shots fired was Nancy Reagan's proposal to kids for dealing with peer pressure: "Just say no."

Strangely, this seemed ineffective. Despite Nancy's firm delivery of the line in TV spots, kids were still taking drugs. An even stronger weapon was needed, and it came in the shape of fried eggs, in the famous "This is your brain on drugs" ads. Unfortunately, this salvo was met with ignoble parody - the infamous "This is your brain on drugs with a side of bacon" spoof on Saturday Night Live.

For the better part of two decades, ad agencies toiled with no demonstrable success (though gaining some degree of profit) with various forms of these basic campaigns, stressing the moral and health detriments caused by illegal drug use. Somehow, none of the efforts made the mark, whether they attempted to scare kids away from drugs, admonish kids to stay away from drugs, scare kids away from drugs, or admonish kids to stay away from drugs.

As the 80s dragged on, some libertarian perverts even suggested that the war on drugs was a failure - or worse, a waste of tax dollars - and should be abandoned altogether. Yet for some time sanity prevailed, and tougher and tougher criminal and civil penalties were provided for lesser and lesser drug offenses.

But by the late 90s, the public mood had changed decisively. So-called "drug treatment" was replacing prison time, in part because of dismay over the escalating costs of building new prisons. The namby-pamby neo-liberal elites coddled druggies whenever they found them, and decided that "zero tolerance" was the wrong way to go. Tough love was replaced with positive reinforcement.

That has led to the current campaign, featuring alternatives to drug use. Kids with hobbies or special talents do their thing, and then tell you it's an "anti-drug." One young boy raps, sort of, and explains that this is his anti-drug. Others paint or build model airplanes or round up groups of people they don't like and beat the tar out of them. It's all in the name of doing something other than taking drugs.

I think the ads fail, for a reason that should be instructive to consider. For, as much as our society tells itself that children are our central concern, it's really not true - at least, not in any truly helpful way. The superficial message of the ads seems positive: there are alternatives to using drugs. But the underlying message of the ads is really identical to "just say no" or "this is your brain on drugs," or, to put it another way, "drugs are bad, mm-kay?" (By the way, I think the success of South Park can be largely explained by realizing that kids are not the simplistic morons "just say no" presumes them to be. It's one of the few things on television that doesn't insult kids' intelligence, and it's unfortunate that it's utterly unsuitable for kids to watch.)

To wit: The "anti-drug" ads put the question of drug use in the same old starkly oppositional terms: either you take drugs and become useless, slobbering addicts, or you don't take drugs, and become productive, creative successes.

One reason this is a rotten message to send to kids is that it's a lie and they know it's a lie. Many of the most productive, creative people who ever lived were also slobbering addicts, and often enough both simultaneously. The same culture that expects kids to buy this alarmist propaganda also holds up prominent druggies as heroes: Jimi Hendrix (speed, acid, downers), Richard Nixon (downers, gin), and every single member of the Impressionist movement (opium) to name a few.

Another reason this is a rotten message for kids is that they are also told time and again that drugs are keys to success, as long as they're the right drugs. While our idiotic "zero-tolerance" policies suspend or expel kids for possession of aspirin, we line them up outside the nurse's station for daily dosing with Ritalin, a powerful amphetamine. It's ludicrous to tell a kid that drugs don't enhance performance, when we give them drugs for precisely that reason. I don't mean to imply that kids get confused by the mixed messages, and get hazy about which drugs belong on which schedule. Everybody knows Ritalin is good, methamphetamine is bad; caffeine is good, dexies are bad; Allegra is very good; tobacco is bad, alcohol is bad unless you're over 21 and is still bad unless you use it moderately in polite social company or for its good effects on your heart unless you have a famliy history of early heart disease, high blood pressure or liver disease. There's a clearly drawn line that we all agree divides good drugs from bad drugs and all the other drugs in between. In other words, what we end up suggesting to kids is that losers take bad drugs and winners take good drugs. "Hi, I'm Jerry, and my anti-drug is Percodan."

The kids aren't confused about which drugs they are permitted to take, but they might be confused about the lesson in hypocrisy we seem determined to give them earlier and earlier in their lives.