The black-and-white PSA shows two friends sharing a joint in a dark room with a single window backlighting them.
One friend sarcastically says to the other "Marijuana can mess you up," and asks if has yet gotten the other to "get into other drugs and start mugging people."
[2][b] Other ONDCP public service announcements are said by researchers to have had the same boomerang effect on cannabis consumption.
[4][5] A review of the 1999 study stated: Exposure to the PSAs (versus control messages) reduced the perceived risk of drug use and increased curiosity to use marijuana.
Youth may have misinterpreted ... the tagline "marijuana can make nothing happen to you, too" ... literally.Author Tamim Ansary cited the ad, withdrawn from television "right away", as a counterpoint to anti-drug propaganda when educating his own children.