How to get 7th graders to smoke • Hacker News Board

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#51

Post by vundercind » Wed, May 15, 2024, 2:30 PM UTC

flatline wrote: post #45

patwolf wrote: post #22

This brought back memories of the D.A.R.E. officer coming to my elementary classroom to give us the "don't do drugs" speech. At the end of the speech with feigning hesitation he'd pull out the drug briefcase to the cheers of the kids, like a band holding out their best song for the encore. "This here is methamphetamine, aka crystal meth or speed. If you see a man running down the street with the strength of a bear, t…

I did not get the briefcase in my DARE education. What I did get is a cop telling me that my parents having a glass of wine with dinner or a cigarette after work was just as bad a them using cocaine, and that you could OD and die on weed. All drugs are equally bad. A few years later when my friends were smoking weed and laughed at my concerns, and I realized I’d been lied to, I pretty much did everything under the su…

The realization that almost all illegal drugs (heroin, meth, a handful like that that feel too good—probably exceptions) aren’t really in some much worse category than alcohol and nicotine, and that some are surely less-bad, even, was quite a revelation. Must be a shared experience for a lot of the DARE generation.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#52

Post by kenjackson » Wed, May 15, 2024, 2:32 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #50

The fundamental problem is that drugs are fun and the bad effects are offset by years or even decades. Also the fact that vast majority of people who do drugs never realize the bad effects from it. They do it in moderation, use them responsibly, and stop without much thought. It's the hockey stick at the edge of the chart where all the destructive narrative comes from.

And they are usually addictive. Almost every person I know who smokes says they derive little pleasure they once did, but are addicted to nicotine and can’t stop. And as a non-smoker, it doesn’t look fun, but I trust it was at one point in their life - I guess.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#53

Post by vundercind » Wed, May 15, 2024, 2:32 PM UTC

emchammer wrote: post #48

mrob wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been tried before. In Waterworld, the bad guys are literally called the "Smokers" and smoking is a big part of their culture. It's so over the top it seems more like a parody of anti-smoking campaigns. I doubt it ever convinced anybody not to smoke, and I think any similar attempt is doomed to fail in the same way. Kids are good at detecting when you're trying to manipulate them, and it doesn't matter if you…

I thought it referred to the smoke from their engines? They were the only ones in that world who used internal combustion engines?

Yeah I think I’ve seen that movie three or four times and I never made the connection between the name and smoking cigarettes. Figured it was all the oil they had, and engines they could run with it.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#54

Post by quacked » Wed, May 15, 2024, 2:33 PM UTC

homefree wrote: post #46

quacked wrote: post #40

At the core of the problem is that social services that address the physical consequences of smoking (mostly medical professionals and financial counselors) are run by people who believe that everyone ought to be treated similarly and have similar opportunities, regardless of behavior. Smoking is considered "a problem" to society because intelligent, caring people that notice that smoking injuries and medical conditi…

> “ So really, what's going on is that well-intentioned meddlers are trying to meddle in the lives of people who don't share the utopian, collaborative values of the meddlers. Predictably, this doesn't work.” It actually did work incredibly well (at least in the US). Smoking went from something the majority of the American population did that was present in almost all private and public spaces to something only a sma…

Yeah, that's true.

I was thinking more about the "at risk" populations that are very resilient to smoking interventions, which are what the seventh-grade propaganda campaigns that I sat through and are talked about in the article are trying to capture and influence. There are still 20-30M adult smokers in the US, and cigarette sales are pretty stable. Smoking is still considered "a problem" by smoking interventionists, but they're not doing a great job at finally stamping it out, because they need harsher methods than learning campaigns and well-intentioned propaganda.

Edit: I had removed "predictably, this doesn't work" from my original comment before you commented for the exact reason that you commented. To a degree, it does work, on people who typically follow rules, when it's combined with taxes and bans that make it a crime to smoke.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#55

Post by delichon » Wed, May 15, 2024, 2:33 PM UTC

patwolf wrote: post #22

This brought back memories of the D.A.R.E. officer coming to my elementary classroom to give us the "don't do drugs" speech. At the end of the speech with feigning hesitation he'd pull out the drug briefcase to the cheers of the kids, like a band holding out their best song for the encore. "This here is methamphetamine, aka crystal meth or speed. If you see a man running down the street with the strength of a bear, t…

In high school around 1976 we got a talk by the swim team coach, telling us the horrors of various drugs, going into his wide personal experience with them and why we shouldn't follow his example. He told us that if we ever had any questions he was there for us, and gave us all his personal phone number.

So me and some buddies got a hold of some peyote and were more than a little afraid of it. We probably would have tossed it but we had a better idea. We called Coach and asked his advice. He gave us detailed preparation instructions. We followed them and got a bit sick, but not altered. Maybe it wasn't even peyote.

I'm not sure that this approach was just more nuanced than "just say no" or closer to "just do it".

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#56

Post by nkrisc » Wed, May 15, 2024, 2:33 PM UTC

> You know those signs on the highway that say things like, “Drive safely! Over 20 people have died on this highway so far this year!”? They maybe cause more people to crash and die.

Ah yeah, those signs that completely remove the human tragedy of those who lost their lives driving. Instead you see something like "99 people died on this highway" and for a moment I can't always help but think, "so close to 100!" before remembering these are dead people, not just a number.

What always reminds me to drive more carefully and not be so complacent is reading about some family has been torn apart by some little driving mistake that I could have easily made as well. It's tragic and depressing, but that's what reminds me to think about my own family when I'm driving.

With regards to smoking, what convinced me to never take up smoking was seeing what 50 year old smokers looked like. Yikes. Should some lifelong smokers be fortunate enough to live to 80, taking a look at them will typically put to rest any remaining desire to smoke.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#57

Post by devoutsalsa » Wed, May 15, 2024, 2:36 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #52

Workaccount2 wrote: post #50

The fundamental problem is that drugs are fun and the bad effects are offset by years or even decades. Also the fact that vast majority of people who do drugs never realize the bad effects from it. They do it in moderation, use them responsibly, and stop without much thought. It's the hockey stick at the edge of the chart where all the destructive narrative comes from.

And they are usually addictive. Almost every person I know who smokes says they derive little pleasure they once did, but are addicted to nicotine and can’t stop. And as a non-smoker, it doesn’t look fun, but I trust it was at one point in their life - I guess.

Smoking Is Awesome, by Kurzgesagt - In A Nutshell, touched on how smokers eventually need cigarettes just to feel normal.

https://youtu.be/_rBPwu2uS-w?si=hR0J-eqBBUOjVtvd

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#58

Post by InitialLastName » Wed, May 15, 2024, 2:38 PM UTC

patwolf wrote: post #22

This brought back memories of the D.A.R.E. officer coming to my elementary classroom to give us the "don't do drugs" speech. At the end of the speech with feigning hesitation he'd pull out the drug briefcase to the cheers of the kids, like a band holding out their best song for the encore. "This here is methamphetamine, aka crystal meth or speed. If you see a man running down the street with the strength of a bear, t…

We had the county sheriff come to an assembly, show us pictures of a local "drug den" they had busted, bring out a body bag and tell us "it breaks my heart when I pick up a body bag and the weight shifts to one end, because that means there's a kid in it", and conclude with "If you ever touch drugs you'll end up living here until I drag you out in a bag".

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#59

Post by furyofantares » Wed, May 15, 2024, 2:38 PM UTC

Lots of great points, although a sexual harassment quiz for adults seems fairly different than a multiweek program for kids.

And the article seems to argue that interventions are unlikely to change people while also accepting that the drug study did change the kids in the wrong way. To me that doesn't indicate that it's necessarily wrong to try to intervene with short-ish programs in schools, it indicates the content of those programs might be really bad.

Maybe that program didn't actually harm kids, beyond wasting their time, and was a statistical outlier. I don't have much opinion that. But I can understand why interventions can backfire if they're inauthentic. When I figure out you've been lying to me, I want to throw everything you said out the window. If you also made me make some videotaped promise saying something YOU want me to believe then you can bet I'm gonna feel betrayed too.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#60

Post by hollywood_court » Wed, May 15, 2024, 2:38 PM UTC

I have a love/hate relationship with smoking. I quit smoking 5+ years ago when my child was born. But I always loved a smoke with a beer. But I also quit drinking.

As a carpenter and electrician, I smoked many cigarettes during my career and they calmed me and allowed me to focus a bit better.

However, I finally realized that few things say "hey look at me I'm am absolute idiot" quite like smoking.

That's actually what I told myself over and over again to shame myself into quitting. I associated smoking with a few trashy individuals that I knew. I told myself that I didn't want to be like those people so I tricked my mind into quitting.