Drug warriors in the United States have been lamenting the rise of the 'methamphetamine epidemic' since the early 1990s. While the overall rate of methamphetamine use in the United States is estimated to be quite small--8.6% of adults having tried it and 0.27% currently using it-- what has fueled the notion of a methamphetamine epidemic is that it does not neatly fit into longer-standing narratives about who uses drugs or areas where drug use takes place.
Methamphetamine was initially found to be a drug largely confined to suburban and rural regions of the country with usage being more prevalent amongst those who would describe themselves as 'white'. This stands in sharp contrast to previous narratives of illicit drugs that have focused on urban spaces and those racial others said to inhabit them: opium dens in Chinese districts, marijuana and Hispanic barrios, heroin, and later, crack cocaine in African American ghettos. While its use has spread, these initial patterns of consumption continue to dominate, frustrating performatives of the American Self as drug-free that are central to the discursive practices of the 'war on drugs'.
How then are authorities responding? In Montana, which reportedly ranks amongst the top ten states nationally in per capita treatment admissions for methamphetamine, the solution has been to initiate a slick advertising campaign by problematizing methamphetamine use as a 'consumer product marketing issue'.
As the Montana Meth Project website notes:
- Meth is a consumer product. It is readily available. It is affordably priced. It is distributed statewide through a very effective distribution channel. It has many product attributes that are perceived as attractive.
The idea then is to counter the positive perceptions of methamphetamine with a
- research-based marketing campaign—supported by community outreach and public policy initiatives—that realistically and graphically communicate the risks of methamphetamine to the youth of Montana.
And the campaign of print ads--many of which can be found in high school newspapers--are visually powerful and stunning. The models, compositions, and palettes are particularly reminiscent of the controversial 'heroin chic' adverts for Calvin Klein--waify young models looking sweaty and strung out-- with the mixture of image and copy provoking the same kind of shock as the infamous 'United Colours of Benetton' campaign. In these respects, these ads have successful embraced the 'consumer product marketing' motif to produce a high impact message.
However,in doing so, there is a dangerous and counter-productive individualism--central to consumerism-- underpinning the message. The Montana Meth Project's campaign relies on reductionist links to sexual deviancy, self-image, and disease that Curtis Marez has shown to have been central to American narratives of illicit drug use since the first laws prohibiting opium use were passed in the second half of the 19th century.
Any of the social issues outlined in the campaign--cultures of rape in correctional facilities, teenage sexual activity, prostitution, or infectious disease transmission--are extremely complex. Coding methamphetamine use as a necessary condition for their occurrence and/or localizing their presence among methamphetamine users is completely irresponsible. Is it really only methamphetamine users in Montana who must deal with these issues? Do all methamphetamine users really have to deal with them? For example, is it inevitable that if you use methamphetamine, you will be sexually assaulted in a prison?
Moreover, the discursive framing that takes place both visually and textually shifts total blame onto those who may be subject to forms of violence, ill-health, or marginalization by implying that drug use has brought this--retributive?-- misfortune upon them. In other words, being vulnerable to infectious disease, sexual violence, or addiction is presented as arising directly from the consequences of personal choice.
As much as the images and copy may shock us--particularly given their close resemblance to typical consumer campaigns--it is the baseless assumptions about inevitable consequences and individual choice that makes this advertising campaign so problematic.
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