D'Arcy pushes anti-drug ads

When is a roach not a roach? When a sixth-grader moves to seventh grade, according to a new campaign from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.
Print ads and TV spots from D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, New York, correlate recent statistics from the government agency. These stats show that the number of grade-schoolers smoking marijuana for the first time increases dramatically in junior high school: from one in
15 sixth-graders to one in four seventh-graders.
In addition, the ads illustrate the double entendres of such words as clip, pipe, roach, joint, weed, bag and drugs.
D’Arcy creative director Graham Woodall said the strategy aims to show parents that they should begin talking about drugs earlier to their children, whose perception of the subject changes dramatically in one year.
“Many parents start talking to their kids about this too late,” he said.
The pro bono campaign broke nationally last week for the client, based in...