DEA's "One Pill Can Kill" Ad Campaign

By Owen Kelly

 

The Cultural text I am focusing on is the "One Pill Can Kill" Ad campaign. With the rise of Fentanyl over the past few years, this ad campaign takes on the new war on drugs. The DEA created this ad to help raise awareness of the Fentanyl epidemic and the issue with counterfeit pills on the market. The ad includes that you should not be taking pills unless they are prescribed by a doctor. This is interesting in the entire landscape of the War On Drugs because, for a long time, a big part of the war on drugs was prescribed drugs and opioids. So, the ad's inclusion of only taking prescribed drugs is interesting to me.   I think the modern war on drugs is so different from the ones in the past because of the regularity we are seeing now with the normalization of certain medications and how certain states are trying to regulate the distribution of drugs. A few years ago, there was an ad campaign when Fentanyl first became more known in the United States that focused on how the smallest amount can kill you. I think this ad campaign relates to how the war on drugs is defined because it is very similar to the "Crack Kills" ad Campaign during the 80's. This ad campaign does build the consensus that if you are not safe when taking pills, the smallest thing can kill you. The ad reinforces that the war on drugs not only targets drugs but people too. This new era of the War on Drugs continues the old trend of violence and harshness around drugs. They want to create the focus that drugs kill you.

Going back to how the ad relates to how war is lived, it is lived through people. When you look at more physical war in the Middle East, it is two sides of people fighting each other. With the war on drugs, it is not only lived through people but also substances. So, this ad is targeting regular people. The war on drugs ad campaigns are similar to military ad campaigns. Military ad campaigns target regular people and show that you can join the military. When you look at the war on drug ads, it targets regular people who can be affected by it. Specifically, in this ad, when they talk about pills, every person at some point has been prescribed pills, so they want to put out there that unless it's prescribed, it should not be viewed as safe. The DEA is trying to fight the drug epidemic by getting people to help. 

One thing that my analysis reveals when it relates to me is that, as opposed to most wars, the war on drugs affects everyone. No matter whether someone is rich or poor, if they have a good household or not, they can be affected by drugs. So when you look at the one pill can kill ad campaign, it is effective because everyone can be affected by pills being laced. The army ad campaigns in most of the game won't affect everyone, but most of the time, people can relate to the drug ad campaigns. While many of the war on drug ad campaigns in the past have faced backlash, newer campaigns connect to everyone because there is now a widespread concern over this. As times keep changing, the war on drugs is going to keep adapting through different forms of media to reach various groups. The landscape of the war on drugs has gone from political to now having more meaning as more and more people are affected by it. This ad has not really changed my personal view on the war on drugs because I was already aware of the issues, but I think ads like this can help spread the message to more people.